


Alone Together

by gassagen



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Blood, Cannibalism, Child Abuse, Empathy, Implied Cannibalism, Implied Mpreg, Kidnapping, M/M, Mpreg, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-18
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2017-12-15 08:55:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/847650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gassagen/pseuds/gassagen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Chesapeake Ripper left Will a lot more than he bargained for and Will feels like he's being punished for getting so close to the devil. With his sanity already so close to the brink Will has a hard time dealing with the news. Worse than that, three years after The Chesapeake Ripper trial, Jack comes back looking for Will's help on a case they can't solve which put's Will in a situation where he needs Lecter's help and Will's never been very good at hiding things from Hannibal Lecter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the shitty summary, summing up a story that is still kind of a blossom in my head is rather difficult. As I keep writing I might tweek the summary a little just to keep it flowing.
> 
> Anyway, this is the little plot bunny that's been sitting on my noggin for the past three days. It started as a little drabble while I was watching the Red Dragon movie and kind of escalated into a three thousand word prologue. It's kind of a rough start, I'm NOT going into detail with the mpreg. That's it, it's in the prologue, that's all you're getting, I'm sorry. I love you guys and I love the mpreg tag, but I'm a little iffy about my writing style and going into details of something that I'm not experienced in. I may be in the medical field but I do not deal with babies or the birthing of babies, that ain't my style.
> 
> But still, if two men having a kid grosses you out, then you probably should have read the tags, consider this your last warning to back out.
> 
> One last note; my work is not beta'd. All mistakes are my own. It's 2:30 in the morning and I'm really tired but I also wanted to get this out and up and finished so I can maybe continue with it if people like it enough to want more.  
> Enjoy~

Throughout the entire trial Will felt sick to his stomach. It wasn’t surprising considering the situation, the betrayal. Will still had a hard time believing it, no that wasn’t true, the signs were all there he just didn’t want to believe it. Part of him still hoping that he’d wake up and this would all just be another horrible hallucination, even after this long. Jack was worried about him, and maybe Will should have been worried about his own sanity a little more than he was but part of him still hoped this was a dream.

Everything hurt, the nightmares were keeping him up at night, making him toss and turn in his bed so often there wasn’t a spot on his body that didn’t ache. The worst of it wasn’t when he was sleeping though; the worst part of it was when he was in court, facing the man who had done this to him. Will didn’t want to go; he didn’t even want to look at Lecter’s face because what Will was so used to seeing wasn’t matching up with what he saw anymore. Lecter was sick, and he’d tried to drag Will into the madness with him. Almost succeeded too.

Will wasn’t even sure if he’d say almost anymore. He felt insane, he felt like his entire world had been flipped upside down. The man he’d trusted, more than any other human being, had lied and betrayed him in the worst way. Will had given Lecter everything every part of him that he could give another person; his mind, his heart, even his body. Will had spent hours sitting under the shower trying to wash off the phantom touches after Lecter had been caught, a futile attempt.

As soon as the trial was over, Will ran.

He ran from everything; Lecter, Jack, the FBI, anything that could inadvertently bring up the memories he wanted so badly to suppress. It didn’t matter, no matter how far or how fast he ran the nightmares were still there, haunting and just waiting for him to fall asleep, waiting to attack. When he slept it was like Lecter was still there, like he’d never been caught at all, and every morning he’d wake up sick enough to dump his supper into the toilet.

During the day it wasn’t so bad, the fresh ocean air of Miami helped clear his head. The dogs liked the water almost as much as Will did, and more often than not they were chasing each other through the waves while Will worked on the boat engines that took most of his attention. It was enough to put Lecter and the force behind him for a while, and there were some points in time where he almost felt normal again.

His normal didn’t last long, the nightmares stayed but after a while the nausea went away, though with it came new, more worrisome symptoms. There were times when he would feel dizzy, and not the usual dizziness, a lightly headedness that warned him he needed to sit down and relax for a moment and usually was followed by a nose bleed. For a while Will didn’t worry about it much, he didn’t feel sick like he did with the encephalitis; no burning fever meant no infection.

It wasn’t until his stomach started bloating that he became truly worried something was wrong. It could have been cancer, a terrible irony that he’d survived the force to be done in by gastric cancer. Begrudgingly, after the bloating didn’t go away and in fact got worse, Will made an appointment at North Shore Medical Center.

\--

On the day of his appointment he was late. The dogs would not stay in the house, trying to jump in the cab with Will, the traffic was a mess, and by the end of it Will was ready to rip chucks of his hair out. He was starting to lose his emotions to this illness and the thought disgusted him, he didn’t want to lose himself to something again. At least there would be no one behind his doctors back telling him to lie this time, no Lecter behind him hiding things from Will, but there was still the fear that maybe he was still there.

A stupid thought. Lecter was locked away at Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane and if there was ever a situation where he could escape, Jack would call Will first because Will would be the first place Lecter would go.

He was seen relatively quickly because he was so late, ushered into the room by the nurse where his weight, height, and blood pressure were taken and recorded. Will noticed that both his weight and blood pressure were much higher than usual. As soon as his vitals were taken he was lead into another room where he would wait for his doctor for an examination and overview of his symptoms. It felt like Will had been there an hour already before the doctor knocked quickly on the door and walked in.

“William Graham?” The doctor asked, his face in the clipboard in his hands, reading off Will’s name before observing the man in front of him, searching for an affirmation.

“Uh, yeah. That’s me.” It wasn’t often that Will had to have a somewhat decent conversation, not since leaving the force and he’d had a hard enough time then. It’d only gotten worse since the trial and his hideaway almost six months ago.

“I’m Doctor Middleton,” he replied, offering Will a smile that did nothing to calm his nerves. “So, the file says that you’ve experienced some bloating that won’t go away along with some nausea. Any other symptoms you can provide so we can narrow this down?”

Will frowns, trying to think back on what he’d felt. The last time he’d needed an examination Lecter had been the one talking to the doctor, not Will. “Uh, well, the nausea is pretty much gone now. Lately it’s been mostly a shortness of breath, like something’s pressing against my lungs. I get dizzy and nose bleeds, something’s obviously wrong. It sounds like stomach cancer to me.” His words were hurried; he just wanted to get this over with, to fix whatever was wrong so he could go back to hiding out with his dogs.

“Well, if you could lay down on you back for me I’ll feel around your stomach and give you my professional opinion. Afterwards we can schedule an ultrasound to take a look in there. From what it sounds like it could be cancer or it could be something as simple as a cyst. Let’s not go making funeral arrangements just quite yet, shall we?”

Will gives a nod, though he’s not quite sure if it’s for the doctor or himself, though it doesn’t do much to calm his nerves. Instead he takes a deep breath and lays back on the examination table, it’s uncomfortable and the paper rides up his shirt which he works to pull back down. Stepping forward, Dr. Middleton reaches his gloved hands out to prod at Will’s slightly protruding stomach through his shirt, feeling around and occasionally asking Will if he feels any pain. He doesn’t, but laying on his back like this makes it feel like something is squishing him, something that shouldn’t be in his body.

After a moment of prodding the doctor has a frown on his face, not a good sign.

“Mr. Graham, if you could follow me towards the back we can reserve the ultrasound machine.”

The frown never left, but Will sat up, readjusted his shirt, and followed Dr. Middleton towards the back of the hospital. He didn’t look up as he walked, following the doctor’s shoes as he walked, avoiding any and all gazes that might come his way. The doctor had obviously found something worrisome. If he hadn’t then it would have taken up to a week to schedule the damn ultrasound, it was probably better this way, if they caught it in time there might be some hope.

Again Dr. Middleton had Will lay himself up on something that looked like a table and chair mixed together. It was uncomfortable, and it took Will a moment to position himself to a somewhat bearable position. Again the paper pulled at his shirt, but before Will could reach down to fix it, Dr. Middleton was seated in front of the machine asking Will to raise his shirt for him. There was a slight hesitation from Will, the protrusion of his stomach was unnatural and Will wanted to feel ashamed of it. Biting back those feelings he lifted his shirt, staring at the currently blank screen in front of him rather than his belly or the doctor’s hands.

“This is kind of an impromptu thing so I didn’t have time to warm up the gel or anything, it’ll be cold.”

Will gave him a nod to let him know he understood, his eyes never leaving the black screen. Dr. Middleton gave a slight nod of his own, squirting more gel than necessary on his stomach before running the wand through it to spread it around. It was cold, and goosebumps rose up on Will’s arms as he laid there watching in silent anticipation while the doctor turned the screen on.

There was a short moment of searching before Will sat up in a rush. “What was that?” His voice was panicky, shaking, terrified of what he thought he saw. The doctor seemed frozen at the screen too, though there was nothing there now that Will had sat up and the wand lay in his lap.

Dr. Middleton raised a hand to Will’s shoulder, laying him back down on his seat. “Lean back and we’ll take another look. Perhaps try not to move this time so I’ll be able to see for myself?”

“Sorry,” Will murmured, though his heart was racing now and he couldn’t pull his eye off the screen even if he tried. He didn’t want to see what he saw again, because what he saw certainly didn’t belong in his body.

The doctor moved the wand back to the position it was at, and seconds later there it was, the thing Will thought he say but hoped he hadn’t. For a moment Will didn’t believe that those were his insides on the screen, perhaps he was dreaming again. He didn’t say anything, he half-lay there, frozen in his spot, eyes frozen to the screen.

“Well there it is,” Dr. Middleton murmured, staring slightly puzzled at the screen. Will thought he was taking this all too well for what Will was seeing; perhaps he was hallucinating, seeing something different than what the doctor was seeing. Until Dr. Middleton reached down, flicking on a switch on the machine, a steady sound filling the silence. Quick, almost as fast as Will’s own heartbeat. It felt like he couldn’t breathe. “It’s certainly not cancer, nor is it a cyst.” He hummed, scooting closer to the screen, like it was the most interesting thing in the world. Will just wanted to turn it off.

“From the looks of it,” Dr. Middleton continued, “He seems to be twenty-four weeks old.”

Will sat up; brushing the wand off and making the screen go dark again. He didn’t even bother wiping the gel off, just pulled his shirt down and wrapped his arms around himself for a minute. One of his hands coming up to wipe away at the sweat that coated his forehead and matted his hair. This couldn’t be happening; it was an impossibility that Will couldn’t even wrap his head around.

“H-how?” Was all he could manage, his face buried in his hands.

Setting the wand back on the machine the doctor sat back in his chair, turning to face Will, a careful look upon his face as he studied the patient in front of him. “I know how shocking this may be for you,” he started before Will interrupted.

“Shocking? This…this isn’t shocking! This is impossible!”

“No,” the doctor assured. “Not impossible, rare, but not impossible.”

“No, no. This is impossible, rare is something that can happen. This doesn’t happen, I’m not a woman!”

“Please, Mr. Graham refrain from interrupting me if you want your answers.” This time Will was silent, swallowing whatever words were threatening to escape. “Pregnancy in males is rare, only thirty-five percent of males throughout the world carry this mutation. It first appeared even before written time, with the Greeks. A natural adaption for two males sharing a bed, though it only appeared in a rare few. As the generations went on the mutation was passed on, though it wasn’t widely known as it lay dormant.

“With the increase in homosexual relationships in this day and age more often are we running into male pregnancies if protection isn’t used. Only, it’s still difficult to release that kind of information without scandals and backfires, attacks to gentleman with this specific mutation. Recently there have been ads out featuring pregnant males, it’s not much but they’re off to a start.” There was silence in the room as Will tried to wrap his head around what was going on. A difficult task and he found his breath frozen in his lungs and his throat trying to close up. “Look, Mr. Graham. I’m going to refer you to another doctor in the Miami area; she’s dealt with more than a handful of these cases. I’ll set you up with an appointment with her, that’ll give you some time to figure out what you’re going to do, yeah?”

Will just nodded, not able to speak as the doctor scribbled on the back of a card and handed it to Will, telling him to expect a call. He was silent on his way out the door, and the entire cab ride home. It wasn’t until he was in his room, surrounded by his dogs, that he let himself break down on the bed.

\--

A week later and Will still couldn’t wrap his mind around the idea that the protrusion in his stomach wasn’t cancer but a child. Stealing away from his nourishments the same way its father stole away at his sanity. He didn’t want it, and yet at the same time he felt like this was his punishment. No one walked out of the devil’s chamber without something to show for it. For most of the week he’d tried convincing himself over and over again that even if this child should make it belonged in the hands of someone else, someone more capable than himself. Will was unstable, always had been. Attempting to raise a child in that kind of instability would only cause problems for it, with Will’s luck it would grow up just like its father...or just like Abigail.

Nature over nurture.

Yet at the same time he’d had nightmares, nightmares where he had given it away, gave it to some other family to raise happily. Only to find himself hunting the child once it was older, taking on the patterns of the Chesapeake Ripper, its father. Will was terrified of the thing inside him, terrified of what it will grow up to be like, of everything unknown about what was happening to him. He was terrified that Lecter would find out, that anyone would find out, and this child would share Abigail’s fate beneath Lecter’s hands.

The second hospital he was sent to was much smaller than North Shore, more secluded and quiet. He had an appointment with a Dr. Carrie Rathbone this time; Dr. Middleton said she’d had experience in cases like this, males with this additional mutation. It made Will squeamish to even think about. This wasn’t a normal pregnancy in any stretch of the imagination, whereas pregnancy was a celebration of new life Will found this to be a disgusting joke. Fate spitting in his face, proof that he might not survive the Chesapeake Ripper after all.

He sat waiting for fifteen minutes before a woman came out calling his name out to the handful of people sitting in the waiting room. Will didn’t say anything as he stood, simply following her towards the back where the examination rooms were. Dr. Rathbone didn’t seem put off by this, in fact she let Will’s demeanor roll off her shoulders with ease, probably used to this kind of reaction, though maybe not to the same degree as Will’s internal struggles.

Instead of walking into the examination rooms, Dr. Rathbone led him straight into her office, closing the door securely behind them. She motioned for Will to take a seat in front of her desk, smoothing out her skirt before she sat down herself. She offered him a smile that Will couldn’t return and stuck her hand out for him to shake, he managed that, though his hands were hot and sweaty compared to hers and he almost felt bad for making her shake his hand. She seemed unphased however, and instead sat back in her seat. “Mr. Graham, I’m Dr. Rathbone. I’m sure Dr. Middleton has told you about me briefly, you’re not the first patient he’s sent our way.”

“Can we talk about this like I am the first patient?” Will asked, voice a little rougher than he meant it to be, but he felt like he was losing control of everything around him. Nothing was the same, his world was flipped and it was all Lecter’s fault. “Because I still have no idea what’s going on.”

She leaned forward on the desk slightly, hands clasped in front of her as she studied him. His attitude didn’t seem to do anything to her, used to her clients freaking out over the news Will himself had just received. “Well, let me start off by explaining to you how rare and dangerous this is.” Of course it was dangerous; everything about Will had to be dangerous. “Though you can rest assured that no parent or child has ever died under my supervision, so if you do as I say we can both get through this with minor difficulties, understood?”

Will nodded; it was all he could do at this point.

“Alright then,” she continued, leaning back again. She glanced at a file Will assumed was his on the top of her desk before her eyes met his once more. “Now, I’m sorry but there’s really no way to perform a legal abortion, not with how far along you are. At this point you’re options are adoption or bucking up to the responsibilities of raising a child.” She didn’t have to add the ‘alone’, it was silent; they both knew it from the lack of company Will had in her office. “Towards the end we’ll keep you here where we can monitor your progress and be able to deliver the child safely and quickly.”

Bile rose up in Will’s throat at the thought, but he swallowed it down. “And how—how will it be delivered exactly?”

Dr. Rathbone nodded, as if she were expecting this question. Of course she was. “Well, as your hips are far too narrow and it can’t come out the way it came in without doing irreversible damage; the only way to safely deliver would be cesarean. I’ve done it plenty of times now, I know my way around a body like yours. I’ll make sure you come out of this alive.”

“That sounds more like a threat than a comfort at this point,” Will muttered, again running his hand over his face. But it was settled, and this was really happening whether Will wanted it or not. Of course, that question was still haunting his mind. Did Will want this? Would he be able to raise this child properly? He doubted it, but he also doubted any other possible parent out there. If there was one person in the world that had a snowball’s chance in hell at raising a child produced by Hannibal Lecter; it was Will.

But could Will protect this child from his father? Will wasn’t quite sure of the answer to that question just yet.


	2. Room For One More

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh gosh, look at all you lovely people. I honestly was not expecting to get even half as many hits as the first chapter got. You're all amazing and your views, your kudos, and your comments have all helped spur my muse to continue with this story. I have no idea how many chapters there will be as I'm just writing as I go along, just keeping bringing the love and my muse will thank you greatly.
> 
> On another note; to avoid copyrights and all that jazz I've created my own 'killer' that they'll be hunting. Not really as easy as it sounds I assure you, but I have it all planned out and set and ready to jump into action! I hope you enjoy the thrills planned as much as I do~

Will certainly wasn’t excited to see none other than Jack Crawford himself marching up the driveway to Will’s house on the ocean. He caught sight of Jack just in time to usher the dogs outside and close the door behind him so any barking wouldn’t wake up Andrew who had finally fallen asleep only a half an hour ago. It was piss poor timing, Will was finally starting to feel okay, the nightmares had even become less and less often. It helped when Andrew slept in the same bed as him, his body instinctively knowing not to toss and turn so he wouldn’t squish the now three year old. At least he knew it wasn’t an escape, if it had been Jack would have called him rather than make a personal visit.

No, Will had a feeling that this was a recruitment. He’d seen the clips in the papers, about the murders in Atlantic City, two so far with little to no leads. If Jack had come all this way for him then Jack was desperate, more than desperate, he was pulling at his last strings.

“Jack,” Will greeted, walking up the drive way to greet the man currently being greeted by the barking dogs. If he kept Jack away from the house, away from what lay sleeping inside, then perhaps he could decline Jack’s offer without too many questions. The problem was that Will wasn’t sure he wanted to decline; he missed the force sometimes, the lives he saved. Only now he had more than just himself to think about.

“Will,” Jack returned, a smile on his face as he maneuvered his way around the dogs to get closer to his profiler. Will tried to return the man’s smile but it was halfhearted as the conversation they would be having drew closer. “You have some time to talk?”

There was a slight scoff from Will as he ran a hand through his hair. “I’ve got nothing but time now and you know that, that’s why you came.” He motioned with his hand, leading Jack towards the beach where there was a picnic table set up, away from the house. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“It’s warm here, a drastic difference from up there in Jersey. Glass of iced tea would be wonderful.” Jack stood to follow Will towards the house but Will raised his hand to stop him.

“I’ll—I’ll get it.”

Returning to his seat, Jack watched Will walk back towards the house with a slight frown. He had expected Will to be different after his disappearance, to be changed, perhaps for the better. What he hadn’t expected was for Will to be so guarded; the FBI had him protected from just about anything. Jack couldn’t help shake the feeling that Will was hiding something and whatever it was that Will was hiding he felt the need to hide it from Jack too.

He took a brief look around the property, trying to spot anything unusual that could clue him in on Will’s behavior. There wasn’t anything too unusual; a boat motor half torn apart on the lawn, a few toys for the dogs here and there, all of it was typical Will. Except one thing. Down closer on the beach, by the soft sand beaten down by the waves, there was sand thrown together in an attempt to build a sandcastle perhaps. There was a bucket and shovel too, something cheap you could find in a local dollar store. It didn’t look like it belonged on Will’s property and yet there it was, left behind to come back to later.

The sound of a glass being set in front of him drew his gaze from the pile of sand and towards where Will sat in front of him with a glass of his own. Jack reached out, grasping the glass and raising it towards his face, eyes watching Will. “You got a kid now, Will?” Jack was hoping he did, that he’d settled down with a nice girl and started living normally again. It almost made him feel bad for the question he had come here to ask.

Will’s eyebrows furrowed as he drank the iced tea, looking increasingly uncomfortable. He shook his head, setting the glass back down on the table with a little more force than necessary. “That’s not what you came here to talk about, is it, Jack?” Jack didn’t need to answer Will for Will to know what his response would be. “You came here to talk about the murders in Atlantic City. Let’s talk about it.”

The avoidance of the subject had Jack a little more than curious about Will’s activities in the three-almost four-years since he’d seen him. He brushed it aside, for now, and leaned forward over the picnic table. “Let me ask you how much you know first and I’ll fill you in on the blanks.”

Will scratched at his neck the frown never leaving his face. He may have been able to run from the force, but he wasn’t able to pull himself away completely. He’d read up on the news reports, kept an eye out for anything unusual, which was why he knew Jack would be coming for him, perhaps before Jack himself knew. He sighed, hands clasping around his glass. “Only what I’ve read in the papers; victims are attacked during the night. The first was choked to death and the other had bruising around the neck but the killer was interrupted and beat him to death with the victim’s baseball bat he used trying to protect himself.” He leaned back in the chair with a long inhale, letting out the breath when he came forward again. “Sounds to me like he’s just getting a taste for it, learning as he goes...”

Jack interrupted him with a shake of his head, pushing his glass off to the side so he could rest his arms on the table in front of him. “There’s something we left out of the papers, something we haven’t released yet.” Will leaned forward as well, getting close to listen to this interesting little detail Jack was hanging on a string in front of him. Tempting the dog with the bone. “Postmortem, the victim’s faces are mutilated to a point where they’re unrecognizable. There’s clear sign of a panic, almost like the killer is snapping out of something and realizing what he’s done.”

“Like a dream,” Will muttered, knowing the feeling all too well. “And there’s no evidence? No hair, prints, blood, anything?”

Again Jack shook his head, “No, nothing. The place is wiped clean before we get there. Our killer is very cleanly, to the point of being OCD about it. He doesn’t want to be caught.”

“No one wants to be caught, Jack.” Will ran his hands across his face, because dammit Jack’s tactic was working. It was a case Will would have a hard time passing up on, it was teasing him.

A sound behind Will snapped him out of his profiling mentality and snapped him back into parent mode, turning back to look towards the screen door that had just banged shut. There, walking towards them with one hand on the back of a large German Shepherd who must have snuck in when Will went in to get the drinks, was Andrew looking extremely excited the moment he saw Will’s face. For a moment Will felt guilty that he had not been in the house when Andrew had woken up, leaving the three year old to wonder where he was.

Will stood, ignoring Jack for the moment as he met Andrew halfway to them, lifting the small boy up to straddle his hip. “What are you doing up and about, huh?”

Andrew reached down, pointing to the dog sitting at Will’s feet looking up at the boy in his arms. “Wolf—Wolf came in and put his tongue on my face.”

“He did, did he?” Will looked down at the dog for a moment before turning back to his son with an only slightly forced smile, knowing Jack was behind him. “Well, how about we go inside and get you a snack and you can watch cartoons while daddy talks to his friend-“

“This your son?” Jack’s voice came from behind Will and Will had to bite back a curse.

“Who’s that?” Andrew asked in his innocent curiosity.

Will’s smile grew more and more forced as he turned to bring Andrew face to face with Jack Crawford. “Drew, this is Jack. He’s one of daddy’s friends from a long time ago. Jack, this is Andrew.” Will left it at that before turning back to Andrew. “Now how about that snack?”

With Andrew’s attention switched back to the snack waiting for him in the house, Will excused himself from Jack and left the man outside while he fixed Andrew up with a snack in front of the television. After placing a light kiss to the top of the boy’s head with a promise to return shortly and should he need anything Will would be right outside, he headed back to Jack with slight hesitance. He knew Jack would ask about Andrew, he’d have questions about whom Andrew’s mother was, how old he was, questions Will didn’t want to answer.

Jack was waiting for him back at the picnic table, a curious look on his face as he watched Will walk closer. Will felt judged under his gaze and kept his eyes downcast as he headed back towards the picnic table. He didn’t sit down, simply stood by the bench, his hand reaching out to run along the cool glass sweating in the heat.

“Jack, I can’t.”

A frown appeared on Jack’s face as he too stood up. “What do you mean you can’t? If this is about the kid—“

“Of course it’s about the kid, Jack!” Will took a step back, surprised almost by his own outburst. He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m the only one here, the only one he has! I can’t just think about myself anymore.”

“So take him with you,” Jack replied earnestly, “While you’re out on the field we can have someone else watching him, I’m sure Alana would be more than happy to help you out. When you’re finished you can take him back to the hotel we’ll rent you. What’s so hard about that?”

“He’s three years old and he has barely left the house except for appointments and the occasional shopping trip! You expect him to be okay with flying to Atlantic City? No way, Jack. I won’t do that to him.”

Jack’s frown deepened, and he sidestepped Will. “Well how about we ask him what he thinks about the situation.”

As Jack started walking towards the house, Will felt a slight tremor of panic run through him and he hurried to step back into Jack’s way. “That isn’t what I meant!”

This time Jack’s frown faded and he let out a sigh. “Look, Will, I need you. I get it, after everything you’ve been through it’s understandable to be weary and untrusting and overprotective but this isn’t like the Lecter case.” Will visibly twitched at the name, not having heard it in so long and having blocked out most of the memories of that time. Hearing it again was like ripping open an old scar. “You’ll be protected, your son will be protected. I just need your insight, you won’t be getting anywhere near the killer.”

Will sighed, his hand reaching beneath his glasses to rub at his eyes. He was having a more and more difficult time denying Jack. He couldn’t deny that the thought of having something to do, a challenge for his mind, wasn’t appealing in every way. The only thing stopping him was Andrew, he was already nervous with the boy’s mentality, placing him in that setting was worrisome to say the least.

“Just let me ask him, Will. If he doesn’t want any part of it and neither do you then I’ll walk away and you won’t see me again.” Jack raised his hands up in surrender with a slight shrug. “I know you want this. I can see it in your eyes. Three years is a long time to be away from something you love.”

There was a long moment of silence before Will sighed and stepped to the side, allowing a clear path to the house. “Fine.” A part of Will was hoping Andrew’s answer would be yes, but a more sensible part of him worried that with Andrew there he wouldn’t be able to completely focus on the case, more worried about Andrew’s whereabouts no matter how safe he was.

A hand reached out in front of Jack, stopping him before he could completely walk away from Will and into the house. “Just—promise me, Jack. If he says no, you don’t ask me again.”

Jack studied Will’s face, seeing the internal struggle on the man’s face. A struggle between his own wants and the need to protect his son. It made Jack wish he and his wife had had children. “I promise, Will.”

Will collected the glasses and followed behind Jack into the house, the dogs following closely behind Will, a few of them nudging at his hands with their wet noses. He shut the door behind him and placed the glasses in the sink before leaning against the counter, watching closely as Jack continued into the living room towards where Andrew was sitting with his finished bowel of Chex Mix in his lap. Andrew noticed Jack coming towards him, but it was a quick glance, apparently more interested in the cartoon on the television.

“Andrew,” Jack muttered, crouching down to the floor by where Andrew was sitting.

“Drew,” the three year old corrected, and Will had to bite back a smile at his son’s snarky reply. Andrew was certainly an interesting character, and Will wasn’t just saying that because it was his son, Andrew was smart and often witty beyond his years. Not always a good thing when attempting to discipline.

Jack chuckled, turning towards Will, recognizing the cheekiness from the boy’s father. “Of course, I’m sorry; Drew.” Jack finally was rewarded with Andrew’s full attention with the use of his nickname, the young boy reaching over for the remote to turn off the television. It was something Will had been very specific about, if he was having a discussion with Andrew the TV was not to be on, it was a distraction and it stole away Andrew’s concentration.

“I’ve got a couple of questions for you, if you’re up for it.”

Andrew’s eyebrows furrowed and he glanced over at Will as if looking for an okay. Will gave the boy a small and a nod, leaning farther on the counter as if to show Andrew that he wasn’t going to be going anywhere. At Will’s nod, Andrew turned back to Jack with a now curious look on his face. “Are you a cop?” Will scoffed, running a hand through his hair with a light chuckle. Andrew was perceptive, though looking at both sides of his genetics it was hard for him not to be.

Jack gave another chuckle of his own and he nodded slightly. “Not exactly, I work for the FBI.” Jack pointed back towards Will, “I worked with your dad before you were born. But those aren’t the kind of questions I’m here to ask you.” Andrew nodded in understanding, scooting over on his butt to face Jack instead of the TV. “You see, I need your dad’s help. The problem is that I need you dad’s help far away from here and your dad isn’t going to leave you behind. So, my question for you, Drew, is this; would you be interested in coming with your dad and me? You won’t be leaving forever, I just need to borrow your dad, and as soon as I’m done with him you both can come right back here.”

Again Andrew turned towards Will, who just shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t look at me, this is your decision.”

For a long moment Will and Andrew stared at each other, as if they were communicating without actually communicating, and Jack felt slightly left out. When Andrew finally broke the staring contest he turned to Jack with a frown. “Are we taking the dogs?”

Turning back towards Will, Jack smiled the smile of a man who had gotten exactly what he was looking for. Will ran his hand through his hair, but kept his face neutral, still on the fence on how exactly he should feel about this. The last thing he wanted was to drag Andrew through the hell Will had been through, but of course Will’s case was special. Situations like Will’s didn’t happen; Lecter was a rare case, a rare type of crazy. A crazy Will didn’t have a name for.

“Well, I’m not quite sure the dogs would appreciate the trip on the plane. Perhaps they could stay here and watch the house for you,” Jack answered with another chuckle. He turned back to Will, an eyebrow raised. “You do have someone who can watch the dogs for you don’t you? I can’t see you dragging all of them onto a plan just for this.”

Will pinched the bridge of his nose, raising his glasses up his forehead. “Mrs. Greco, our neighbor, wouldn’t mind stopping in to feed them and let them out.”

“Aunty Kelly likes the dogs,” Andrew added, patting the Shepherd lying beside him. “Specially Wolf, he’s her favorite. But—but she can’t have him cause he’s mine. We found him on my birthday!”

And with that it was settled. Jack stayed and made small talk before informing Will that he’d be sending a cab out to pick the two of them up tomorrow morning, leaving them some time to pack and not much else. Will was shaky the rest of the afternoon, not quite sure how to feel about everything that had happened. He was excited, excited to get back to doing what he liked to do, excited to put his calculating mind to more use than cleaning up after a child, but he was worried too. Worried for Andrew mostly, but also worried that once he got his taste for working again he wouldn’t want to stop.

\--

Later that night Andrew slept in Will’s bed, most of their clothes in bags downstairs waiting for the cab to pick them up. Will laid there for a while, watching Andrew’s face as he slept, the dogs surrounding the bed. Andrew had been sleeping for a few hours before Will wandered his own way into the bedroom, the child not even stirring as Will slipped under the covers with him.

It was difficult, almost, to look at Andrew for too long. The longer Will looked the more vividly he saw Lecter in him. The boy’s nose was a feature that stood out the most to Will, it wasn’t his. The bridge was too thin, too narrow. And though the boy’s eyes were closed, Will knew all too well what lay behind those closed lids. Andrew had not inherited Will’s own gray blue eyes, nor were they really as brown as they appeared. It took a certain light, a certain shine, but Andrew’s eyes were the same color maroon that Will had only seen on one other person.

He reached his hand out and brushed the boy’s dark brown bangs away from his forehead, the color near identical to Will’s but without a single curl in it. The motion caused Andrew to stir in his sleep and Will stilled to keep from waking the boy any farther. It didn’t work, and Andrew’s eyes flickered open after a moment, blinking the haze out of his eyes as he looked up at Will.

“Is it time to wake up already?”

Will shook his head with a soft smile, pulling the covers up around them both properly before running his hand through the boy’s hair again. “No, I was just getting into bed. It’s still very late.”

Andrew nodded, letting out a long yawn. “Good, ‘cause I’m still—still tired.” For a moment it was quiet between them and Will was almost to the point where he could fall asleep himself, but clearly Andrew wasn’t quite ready for that. “You didn’t tell me you were a cop, daddy.”

Will bit back the frown that threatened to take over his face. It wasn’t particularly the topic that made him upset but rather the fact that the end of his career had resulted in the boy beside him. It wasn’t something Andrew needed to know, not now anyway. “I worked for the FBI, before you were born. I wasn’t really a cop, more of a special investigator.”

“But you hunted down bad guys, right?” Will nodded, digging his face deeper into the pillow without breaking eye contact. It was a rough question, one Will had been expecting but hadn’t quite been as prepared as he’d hoped, because the ‘bad guy’ Will was most notorious for was Andrew’s father. “So you were kinda like Superman.”

Will’s smile was halfhearted but in the dark Andrew didn’t seem to notice. “Kinda.”

“And now you need to go back and save people again?”

“That’s right,” Will answered with a nod.

“I wanna help.”

A laugh escaped Will before he could control it, his hand moving to rest lightly on the boy’s cheek, the pad of his thumb stroking softly. “You can help by keeping safe and listening to what people tell you. There’s a woman there, her name is Alana, she’ll be watching over you while I’m working. She’s very nice, I expect you to be on your best behavior for her, alright?” Andrew nodded and Will’s smile grew. “That’s my boy. Now, get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day, for both of us.”


	3. Put On Your War Paint

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took a little longer than usual but I finally found myself a beta to look over my work and correct anything that needs correcting so yay!
> 
> Also I'm just going to say this right now: Filler chapters suck. Seriously, I know exactly where I need to be and what the plot is going to be but I have to GET there and I just don't want to rush anything but at the same time I'm like GO GO GO!
> 
> So here it is, a little bit of filler though a few of you might be able to guess the plot line if you're clever enough. Or at least a little bit of it ;)

Freddie Lounds had an idea as to what exactly Jack Crawford had been up to after the second murder. It wasn’t hard to figure out that he’d gone after Will Graham, that he was after the man’s ‘talent’. Not exactly what Freddie would call it but Jack seemed to enjoy keeping the man around, like a bite happy but talented dog. She’d been able to see the doubt on Jack’s face as he left for wherever it was Graham was hiding, but she also knew Graham’s type and she knew Will wouldn’t say no.

So when Jack left Atlantic City and then reappeared at the Baltimore-Washington International airport Freddie was there, waiting to catch a glimpse of the infamous man who’d captured the Chesapeake Ripper with her camera. She followed Jack, being sure to keep to the shadows so he wouldn’t catch sight of her and try and get her off the case. She followed him to the spot where Graham would be getting off the plane, but kept back, instead mingling with the crowd with her camera posed at her hip in an unnoticeable fashion.

Graham wasn’t a particularly hard person to spot with his dark curls, nervous composure, and weary glances. However, there seemed to be one thing out of place, so out of place that for a moment Freddie wasn’t even sure that she was looking at Graham. A child, no more than five if Freddie had to guess, was held against Graham’s chest, head resting on the man’s shoulder as he slept. There didn’t seem to be a woman with Graham either as the man and child walked up to Jack.

Not that Freddie was surprised Graham hadn’t been able to keep a woman, though she was surprised that whomever she was had left the child in Graham’s custody. That was just asking for trouble, someone as unstable as Graham shouldn’t be given a parent role in any sense. It was certainly an interesting little fact she’d stumbled across, something that would definitely interest her readers.

Will Graham, unstable FBI profiler, brought back to hunt down another one after three years. This time with a little extra baggage. The yet-to-be-written article swarmed in her head, practically writing itself, as she slipped the camera back into her bag. With one last glance towards Graham and Crawford, a second check to make sure she was still unnoticed by either, she disappeared into the crowd.

\--

Will found that Andrew didn’t particularly enjoy flying, or rather the initial take off. He spent most of the time on the runway latched onto Will’s arm as tightly as he could, his eyes glued to the window. Thankfully he didn’t have to suffer too long, as soon as the plane leveled out and the flight was smooth Andrew fell asleep and even slept through the bumps of the landing. Will didn’t bother waking him either, and instead unbuckled him and lifted him against his chest, using his shoulder as a pillow as Will’s free hand grabbed the one carryon bag they had. Jack already had the rest of their bags sent to the hotel in Baltimore, not too far from Alana’s house who had already agreed to watching Andrew while Will was working.

The two of them were met by Jack as soon as they exited the plane, Jack raised his hand up and silently took hold of the bag in Will’s hand. The walk to Jack’s vehicle was quiet, neither of them wanting to wake Andrew and have him be cranky during the ride to the rented apartment. Will opened the back door and slipped Andrew inside, buckling him up as best he could without jostling him around too much.

After Andrew was all buckled up, Will took his own seat in the passenger seat and Jack started down the road. There was a long moment of silence as Jack drove and Will stared out the window, watching the familiar sights of Baltimore pass by. It brought a dull ache to Will’s chest, being back in Baltimore where Will’s life had practically done down the drain and he’d had to start all over. At some point he’d had to close his eyes, leaning his forehead against the cool window as he let it all fly by him.

“You know I wouldn’t have brought you back unless I needed you, Will.” Jack’s voice was quiet, but Will couldn’t stop himself from turning in his seat to look behind him at Andrew. The boy hadn’t moved since Will had set him down, still sleeping.

“I know,” Will replied, turning his attention back to the window.

Again it was quiet, though Will could practically hear the question burning at the tip of Jack’s tongue. “I feel bad about dragging the kid along for something like this.” It was coming, Will could feel it. He closed his eyes tighter, bringing his hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses, steeling himself. His scar itched at the memories and he had to hold back from reaching his hand down there to rub against it. “What about his mother? You couldn’t have left him with her just until the case is done?”

“I told you, Jack,” Will started, his voice tired and weary. “It’s just Drew and I. It always has been.”

“Alright. Alright.” Jack wanted to push the subject, Will could feel it in the air around them. “You just don’t seem like the one night stand type—“

“Jack,” Will was desperate to drop the subject at this point and his voice made that perfectly clear.

They arrived to the apartment minutes later, the rest of the car ride going by in silence which was fine with Will. As soon as Jack had the vehicle in park Will was hopping out, just wanting to get away from the prior conversation that still hung in the car like stale air. He pulled open the back door and shook the small boy’s shoulder lightly.

“Drew,” he muttered slightly, “Drew wake up, kiddo. We’re here.”

Andrew’s eyes opened slowly before his eyebrows furrowed as he looked around at Jack’s interior. “What happened to—to the plane?”

Will gave him a slight chuckle and ran his hand through the boy’s hair. “You slept through the plane ride, this is Jack’s car, the man who came to the house.”

Andrew frowned, swatting away Will’s hand as it came around to unbuckle the seat belt. “I got it,” Andrew growled at him, clearly he hadn’t been ready to wake up quite yet. “And I remember who Jack is.”

“I wasn’t saying you didn’t,” Will assured him, fighting a smile at the boy’s slight attitude. “Come on, let’s go check out our apartment, yeah?” Will got a nod in response and he smiled back, lifting the boy into his arms. Andrew’s arms wrapped around his neck and he rested his head on Will’s shoulder with a long yawn. “You wanna take a nap while I unpack our stuff?” Will asked quietly to the boy as he walked up the steps, following Jack into the lobby to collect Will’s keys for him.

“Are you working tonight?” Drew asked, his voice muffled by sleep and Will’s neck.

“Not tonight,” Will reassured him, running his hand along the boy’s back in slow circles. “My friend that I told you about, Alana, will be coming over. She’s bringing some things to make dinner and she wants to meet you.”

Will got a hum in response before a quiet; “I hope she brings mac and cheese.”

Will couldn’t stop the laugh that escaped as he made his way up to where Jack was waiting for him by the elevators. “I’ve got some work back in Atlantic City that needs to be looked over, I’ll contact you soon with more details and when I need you in.” Jack handed him over a set of keys. “You’re room’s on the third floor, door number eight.”

“Thanks, Jack,” Will muttered quietly, slipping the keys into his jacket pocket and taking his carryon bag that Jack had snatched from the car for him. They nodded once to each other before Will headed into the open elevator and Jack walked to the exit. It wasn’t a bad hotel, Will would give Jack that. Simply and quant, not so fancy that he felt out of place.

By the time he made it to the door of his room Andrew had fallen back asleep, making it a little difficult to maneuver the three year old, the carryon, and the keys. He managed though, and even considered it a success when Andrew didn’t wake up from his nap. The room was even more simple than the lobby. There was one bedroom-which was fine by Will considering he doubted Andrew would want to sleep away from Will in a strange place anyway-and a conjoined kitchen and dining room with a small living room and television.

Will went straight to the bedroom, noticing the bags Jack had sent sitting there waiting at the foot of the bed. He ignored them for now, instead pulling the sheets down the bed with one hand and setting Andrew inside, covering him up without waking him. They’d gotten up early, and if Will didn’t have unpacking to do and Alana coming over he was half inclined to join his son.

Just as soon as Will started out of the bedroom the phone started ringing in living room. He shut the door behind him so the noise wouldn’t wake Andrew and made his way to the source of the ringing. He found the phone on the side table beside the couch and lifted it to his ear. “Graham,” he answered, having no caller ID and no idea as to who would be calling.

“Will? It’s Alana.” Even though it had been three years her voice hadn’t changed in the slightest and Will would have been able to recognize who it was even without her telling him her name. “I’m glad I caught you, Jack gave me your room number since none of us ever got your cell once you left.”

Will wasn’t quite sure what to say, he was sure this was her attempt at a nonchalant stabbing at his disappearance and lack of communication in three years. “Just got in actually, still working on unpacking a few things.” He stuck with that, ignoring her second comment.

“So we’re still good for tonight? I thought I’d call and ask what I should bring, if there was a particular meal that Andrew would prefer.” Jack must have told her Andrew’s name, it made him a little weary that they were talking about Andrew when Will wasn’t around to supervise the conversation. Then again, Will wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the strange stories they’d come up with as far as Andrew’s ‘mother’. Not that any story could be stranger than the truth, but it was still an uncomfortable thought.

He gave a shrug, even though Alana couldn’t see it. “Anything simple, really.” Will never was one for cooking, but ever since Lecter and finding out exactly what was in those elegant and time consuming meals, he stuck with the simplicities.

“Andrew doesn’t have a favorite food or anything?” It was obvious that Alana wanted to make a good impression on the boy, as she always did. It was perhaps what Will admired about Alana the most, the fact that she always knew how to please people, to get them to open up to her. It left no doubt in his mind that she’d be able to get Andrew to warm up to her despite the boy’s rough nature and lack of experience with too many others.

A chuckle escaped Will before he could stop it. “He likes macaroni and cheese.”

Alana returned his chuckle from the other end of the phone. “The kind from the box I’m assuming, given your culinary expertise.” She laughed again. “I think I’ve got the ingredients around the house to throw together a nice home-made macaroni and cheese.”

“Alana, you really don’t have to. I think even stopping at a local McDonald’s would satisfy us both at this point.”

“You two maybe, but there’s no way I’m putting that trash in my mouth. Trust me, Will, if it was too much of a bother I wouldn’t even offer. How’s six sound to you?”

Will glanced at the clock, it was two-thirty now. “Yeah, things should be calmed down by then.”

“Alright, I’ll see you then.”

\--

By the time Alana showed up at six, Andrew had been awake for a decent amount of time and had unfortunately found the chocolate left out by the hotel before Will did. As soon as the knock came at the door Andrew was hopping off his seat on the couch beside Will, practically tripping over himself as he ran to answer it. “I got it, I got it!” Will ran his hand through his hair with a light sigh, frowning slightly at the hyperactivity of his son with Alana right outside the door.

Andrew reached the door knob on his tip toes, pulling it open to reveal the dark haired woman standing behind it holding a large covered class container that smelt strongly of cheese. As soon as Alana noticed who opened the door she smiled widely and crouched down to Andrew’s level, balancing the container on her lap.

“You must be Andrew,” she greeted with a smile, taking one hand off the container to hold it out to the three year old.

“Drew,” Andrew corrected, though his tone was not a snappy as it had been with Jack and he had a smile on his face as he took her hand in his.

Will walked over to the two of them, bending down to take the container from Alana so that he could place it on the counter and she could get acquainted with Andrew. Alana gave him a smile, handing it over before turning her attention back to Andrew. “Drew, do you like that nickname better than Andrew?”

Andrew nodded quickly, “Daddy uses his nickname so—so I want to too. It’s shorter and easy for people to remember.”

Alana laughed lightly, “Well I like Drew too, it’s very fitting.” Andrew smiled at her and started pulling at her hand leading her into the room, shutting the door once she cleared it. Will was surprised that Andrew had taken so easily to Alana, though he supposed it helped that she was similar in appearance to Dr. Rathbone who had become Andrew’s doctor even after he’d been born.

“So are you going to stay here while daddy is working?” Andrew asked, leading Alana over to the dining room while Will heated up the macaroni and cheese.

Alana glanced to Will for a moment. “Uh, no. You’ll be coming to stay at my house while your daddy works. He’ll come and pick you up when he’s finished.”

“Do you have dogs?”

Alana had to laugh again at that, glancing up at Will who adverted his gaze as he put the homemade macaroni into three separate bowls. “No, sorry, Drew. Your dad was always the dog-guy. We all left that to him.”

The rest of the dinner went by in subtle conversation, mostly Alana questioning Andrew about things he liked to do and everything and anything that interested him. Will was sure that as soon as she left the hotel she’d run out and pick up a few things to keep around her home to entertain him while he was there. The thought made Will a little more relaxed with the idea of leaving Andrew while he worked, though he wasn’t completely calmed by the idea.

Andrew was asleep before eight, passed out on the couch while Will and Alana shared a coffee at the dining table. For a while they sat talking about Will’s work on boat motors, how the dogs were and how many new ones he’d taken in. Will noticed they talked about everything except Andrew and who his mother was, though he also noticed that she was maneuvering her way around the subject, testing the waters. Of course Will had expected this, he knew there would be questions but still didn’t have any answers to them, none that he wanted to share at least.

“Does he get lonely?” Alana finally asked, eyes glancing towards Andrew before turning back to Will with a curious look on her face.

Will frowned, fingers running along the warm cup of coffee. “No—I mean I don’t think so. It’s always been just him and I, and if he gets bored of my company he has the dogs.”

“What about his mother, Will? Boys especially need a mother figure in their lives. Is she still around or…” Alana trailed off, eyes searching Will’s face.

“His mother,” the words came out more forced than he had meant and he ran his hands over his face and started over. “His mother is around, Alana.” He slid his glasses off his face and tossed them carelessly onto the table, running both hands down his face. “I would just really appreciate it if everyone dropped the subject. I’m fine, Andrew’s fine. We’re both fine with what we have. Leave it alone.”

Alana watched him for a long moment before nodding and taking a sip from her coffee. “Alright,” she murmured, her tone nonthreatening and relaxing. “I apologize.” There was a hint of something behind her eyes, something that told Will that Alana had more suspicions than she was letting onto. For a brief moment he felt nervous under her gaze, exposed.

He felt even more uncomfortable when she reached her hand out and placed it on his forearm in a comforting manner, like she was trying to tell him she understood and that everything was going to be okay. His stomach felt like it was in his throat as he realized that Alana had specialized in family crisis, and he briefly wondered if she’d ran into a case like his before. A child with two fathers. Will could certainly see how it could be traumatizing for a child to grow up knowing that, which was why he was grateful it was only him and Andrew and that Andrew had not yet reached the age to ask questions.

“It’s getting late,” Alana murmured, finally breaking the silence. “And our guest of honor has been sleeping on that couch long enough.” She stood, taking the last sip of her coffee before setting it into the sink. “I think I’ll head home, you two could use the shut eye. Keep the mac and cheese, Drew seemed to like it.”

Will gave a shaky chuckle. “Yeah, even better than box stuff surprisingly. I thought he was going to eat the plate as well.”

Alana gave him a smile, standing by the door for a moment as she seemed to just take in Will’s appearance. After a moment she sighed, her smile growing more genuine. “I missed you, Will. We all missed you. It just hasn’t been the same without you, you know? Like a piece to the puzzle was missing.”

Will frowned, looking around the room, anything to keep his eyes away from her gaze. There was a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, something that told him she knew, perhaps not who Andrew’s father was, but she knew and she wasn’t going to say anything about it because Will had asked her not to. “It’s not—it’s not a permanent thing, Alana.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, steeling himself. “Just don’t get too used to it.”

She nodded to him, before giving him one last smile. “I know. Part of me hopes you’ll find your taste again, that you’ll stick around even after this case is solved, but the realistic part of me understands your fear and your need to protect.” Will just nodded, unsure of how to respond to that. Once she realized Will had nothing to say in response she nodded, taking a step backwards towards the door. “I guess I’ll be seeing you around then.”

Will nodded, “Yeah, more often than not I’m assuming, given your new role as Drew’s babysitter.”

Alana laughed at that. “He’s a good boy, Will. You did well with him.” She managed to draw a smile out of him finally, considering it a job well done, she gave one last nod before turning and heading out the door. Will gave her a wave on the way out, shutting the door behind her.

He sighed, running a hand over his face in exasperation, his nerves still jittering from his conversation with Alana. For a moment he busied himself cleaning up after dinner, washing the dishes, doing anything to try and take his mind off the fact that Alana might know. If she even knew that much it wouldn’t take very long for her to do the math, Andrew’s birthday would mean he was conceived before Will had left Baltimore, a good month and a half before Lecter was even caught. She’d be able to figure it all out, Alana was smart enough, and the thought terrified Will.

When he’d finally cleaned everything he could, he headed into the living room and collected Andrew off the couch. He woke slightly when Will lifted him into his arms, only enough to shift into a comfortable position against Will as he brought him into the bedroom with him. Will had long grown used to changing Andrew into pajamas without the boy actually being awake, always falling asleep before being able to change. Once in a comfortable pair of pajamas, Will tucked Andrew into the bed, the boy shifting onto his side as soon as he hit the mattress.

Heading into the bathroom, Will took the opportunity to shower himself and brush his teeth before heading back into the bedroom to change into his own pajamas. He paused before pulling on a plain white shirt, examining the raised scar running from his left hip to his right. It had faded slightly after three years but it was still noticeable, noticeable enough to leave Will in a shirt even in the dead of summer in Florida. He pulled the shirt over his head with another sigh, something he seemed to be doing often lately, before crawling into bed beside Andrew.

As soon as he felt Will against him Andrew shifted, turning to his other side to wrap his small arms around him as best he could. Will smiled, pressing his lips to the top of the boy’s head, pulling him closer to him as a yawn escaped him and fatigue hit him like a rogue wave.


	4. Chemicals Keeping Us Together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY I am so, so sorry for taking so long to get this finished. It's a little longer than the other chapters and definitely more dramatic so I hope you'll all be able to forgive me by the end of it.
> 
> This has been beta'd by my good friend who doesn't have an account on here but she's a cute little panda and we love her anyways.
> 
> Stay tuned for the next chapter, from some of your reviews I know you'll all be very excited when I tell you that our dear lovely Lecter will be making an appearance finally!~
> 
> Enjoy the chapter my amazing readers! I hope to hear your reviews on this chapter, feed my muse. :3 I love you all and stay amazing!

Gabriel Ryder got an unexpected phone call, leaving him hesitant to pick it up. Gabriel was sure to keep to himself for the most part and so he didn’t get many phone calls, least of all in the middle of the afternoon. He could understand if it was later in the night, then it might have been his work calling him in on his night off. Either way, he lifted the phone to his ear with one hand on the cord, ready to rip it out of the wall if the need arose. “Who is this?”

“Gabe,” the voice on the other end of the phone was shaky but Gabriel knew who it was in a moment and he let out a sigh. “Gabe, it’s me.”

“What do you want? You better not be blubbering about how guilty you feel, I’m fed up with listenin’ to your whinin’.”

“No, no it’s not that. Have you read Tattle Crime lately?” Gabriel frowned at that, he didn’t often busy himself with trivial things like that. Not unless it was the morning after what they now called ‘The Cheetah’ murders for any interesting leads.

“Nope. Why, should I have?”

There was an almost nervous chuckle coming from the other side of the phone and Gabriel almost worried about the other man’s sanity. “Yeah, might have been a good idea. Apparently these guys went down and grabbed that Graham guy. The one who solved the Lecter case, the one with that fucked up empathy shit that Lounds always wrote about three or four years ago. He’s in Baltimore, Gabe. We’re gonna get fuckin’ caught. You gotta cut the shit for a while, you hear?”

Gabriel let out a calm laugh, lowering himself into the chair beside the phone, completely relaxed. “Lecter’s capture was his own fault,” Gabriel reassured, his voice neutral as he spoke of the infamous murder. “He got himself too close to that agent. You continuously play with fire and sooner or later you’re gonna get burned. As long as you keep doin’ what you’re doin’ we’ll be fine. Trust me.”

“Gabe,” the voice started again, this time sounding more desperate. “I’m serious. I don’t wanna go to jail for this.”

This time Gabriel sighed, getting tired of the anxious voice on the other side of the phone. “Nothin’s changed; stop being a bitch, Mikey. We got shit to do.” Without waiting for a reply Gabriel ended the phone call, dropping the phone back into its holder with a frown. For a moment he stared at the offensive device, replaying the words that had been spoken. After a few moments passed by he reached out for his laptop sitting on the coffee table, figuring it would hurt to check into Tattle Crime and see what all the buzz was about.

\--

Will was woken by the phone ringing in the living room, pulling him out of a strange dream that was perhaps more of a distorted memory more than anything else. He rolled over, detangling himself from Andrew’s thrown about limbs, before putting his bare feet to the carpeted floor. He moved into the living room as quickly as he could in the dark of an unfamiliar setting, glancing once at the clock to see that it was ten minutes to five. It had to have been Jack; no one else that had this number would call him at this time.

“Graham,” he greeted sleepily, trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes as best he could.

“We’ve got another one, Will. I need you down here as soon as possible.” Of course it was Jack, of course it was a murder, and of course it was five in the morning. It’d been three years since he’d been doing this; he shouldn’t feel as frazzled as he was feeling right now. Something felt wrong, he hadn’t even been to the crime yet and it felt wrong. The other murders had been found later in the evening rather than early in the morning, it was off schedule, perhaps not even the murderer they were after.

“Alright, alright. Call Alana for me; tell her I’ll be bringing Andrew over. As soon as he’s dropped off I’ll be there.”

“1904 Larch Drive, Edgewood, Maryland.”

Will’s frown deepened, if it was the killer they were looking for, they’d moved. No longer staying in Atlantic City. Will was becoming more and more doubtful that this was even the killer they were after. However, it really didn’t matter, a murder was a murder and they needed him. “I’ll be there.”

He hung up the phone and headed into the bed room, begrudgingly nudging Andrew awake while at the same time grabbing clothes for the two of them out of the open closet. “Come on, buddy,” Will murmured. “Daddy’s gotta go to work so you’re going to stay at Alana’s house, yeah?”

Andrew’s eyes wandered around the room in a sleepy daze, propped up by Will’s arm as Will tried to peel off the boy’s pajamas while he was still half-asleep. “Already?” Will hummed an affirmative, pulling a shirt over Andrew’s head. “Can I sleep when I get there?”

Will nodded, “Course you can, I can’t see why not.” It was probably better if Alana had Andrew while he was sleeping, Will would feel a whole lot better about the situation if he knew Andrew was sleeping and not causing trouble. Of course he couldn’t just stop thinking about Andrew, whether the boy was asleep or awake he was always going to be in the back of Will’s mind. It wasn’t going to be as easy to completely give himself over to his empathy, not when he had someone aside from himself to worry about.

As soon as the both of them were dressed and ready, a cab was ready and waiting at the front of the hotel, no doubt sent over by Jack. Will offered to carry Andrew into the cab so he could catch up on some sleep but the boy seemed awake now, instead grabbing for Will’s hand as they walked outside and to the cab. Just as Jack had arranged, Alana’s house was only fifteen minutes away from the hotel Will and Andrew were staying at.

Alana was waiting for them when they pulled up, prewarned by Jack that she’d need to watch Andrew. She had a long coat over a pair of pajamas, roused out of bed by Jack’s phone call. It made Will feel slightly guilty, though Alana assured him as he passed over Andrew that it was no problem. That she was happy to help. It was refreshing at least to see that Andrew got along so well with Alana, it made the walk back to the cab without him slightly easier when he saw Andrew allow Alana to pick him up and take him inside.

He watched out the window towards the house even when it was long out of sight, a bundle of nerves leaving him fidgeting in his seat. It was the first time he’d really been away from Andrew, with any real distance between them. He wasn’t comforted by it in the least, even if Andrew was safe and Will was the one heading into danger, it just didn’t feel right. It felt like he was missing part of himself. He took his glasses off and rubbed at his face in order to get rid of the feeling, to try and clear his head. Futile.

From Alana’s house to the crime scene the drive was close to forty minutes though it seemed to fly by. Perhaps mostly because Will had been lost in his own thoughts throughout the right, falling in and out of a light sleep to try and catch up, to clear whatever thoughts plagued his mind. Jack was waiting for them, handing a fist full of cash to the driver as Will slipped out.

“Alright, Will,” Jack greeted, stepping up to the special investigator as the cab drove off. “I hope you’re awake for this.”

Slipping his glasses back onto his face, Will frowned. “You woke me up at five in the morning and you expect me to be awake?” A tense chuckle left him as the two of them started walking towards the house. The house was small, a rented one bedroom apartment, closed off now by yellow tape and crowds of policemen and forensic teams. Will caught a glimpse of Beverly who smiled and offered a wave, the best she could do as a greeting while working. “Is this the same killer, Jack?” Will asked, looking at the man beside him, slowing his walk so he could get as much information from the man as possible before entering the scene.

“I didn’t think so either,” Jack muttered, “Wrong place, wrong time. But I have to rule out everything, Will. Just check it out.” He opened the door for Will, letting him enter first before following behind. The place had already been cleared for Will do whatever needed to be done to connect with the victim, to empathize with the killer. “Our victim is twenty-five year old Theresa Kimble, works a two-to-ten shift down at the convenient store down the road. No roommates, pets, or nearby family. Works most of the time, a friendly woman, well known around this part of town.”

It stank; it stank of disinfectants and the heavy unmistakable odor of blood. The house seemed empty at first, there was no sign of a struggle, or if there had been the mess had already been taken care of. From what Will could gather all the signs seemed to be pointing to the same killer; the cleanliness of the place was overdone, not the home of a young girl who had a full time job and friends to go out with.

Will continued to follow Jack into the bedroom and the adjacent bathroom where it had happened. Theresa Kimble was lying face down in the bathtub, an indent in the back of her head that was matted and coated with dried blood. The indent matched a similar size crater in the fiberglass wall of the tub where Will was assuming the murderer had bashed her head in. It was strange to see the area around her body so clean when the killer hadn’t bothered to clean up his victim.

Jack took a step back, “I’ll leave you to it then. Soon as you’re done you open this door and we’ll talk, alright?” Will nodded in response and Jack turned to walk out of the bathroom, shutting the door behind him and leaving Will alone in the room with the dead body. It was strange almost, like there hadn’t been three years between the last time Will stood this close to a dead body. It was natural for him, perhaps even more natural than the workings of boat motors.

He took a step back and closed his eyes, letting himself be completely taken over by what little evidence there was. Seeping into the mind of the killer like a plague himself. He saw past the bathroom, to where Theresa Kimble lay sleeping on her bed. She’d been drunk, having ended work and gone out to the closest bar with a few friends, sleeping heavily.

Her door, had an average locking system on the door handle, easily picked and this killer is very skilled at picking locks. It takes him seconds to have the door unlocked, silently able to enter the house without waking the girl in the other room. There was no joy to this murder; their killer wasn’t doing this to feel good about themselves, or to settle a grudge. For once Will found himself struggling to grasp at something, some kind of motive that wasn’t really there. It was like watching the murder happen through a haze, that even though he was connected to the killer that perhaps even the killer wasn’t connected to himself.

He was pulled harshly into reality by the ringing of a cell phone, blinking quickly to try and collect himself. Before he could move the door was opening and Jack was walking in, a frown on his face. “That your phone?”

Will was shaking his head long before he really knew the answer for certain. It wasn’t his ring tone, and it wasn’t coming from him. He pointed down at the body in the tub where the ringing was coming from, Jack pushing forward to stand at the edge of the tub. A white glove was thrown over his hand before he was reaching in trying to locate the phone. Before Jack could find it, it stopped ringing.

Jack was still looking, and Will slipped into some gloves himself to help lift the body enough for Jack to find it. As soon as Jack’s hand wrapped around the cellphone found in her pajama pocket it started ringing again. The two men looked at the phone; the words BLOCKED NUMBER flashing on the screen. Jack glanced at Will for a moment, an eyebrow rose before his finger moved up and answered the call.

“This is Special Agent Jack Crawford,” Jack spoke into the cellphone, keeping it on speaker and away from his face so as not to contaminate it. “To whom am I speaking?”

“Jack Crawford,” The voice had an accent to it; Mainer or perhaps even southern, it was hard to tell. “Yes, I know all about you Jack Crawford. A Freddie Lounds speaks of you quite often, though I’m sure you knew that.”

“To whom am I speaking with?” Jack’s voice was rougher, more demanding rather than intuitive.

There was a laugh on the other end of the phone. “Now, now Mr. Crawford. No use in spoilin’ the game thus far. Not when we’re havin’ so much fun playin’ cat and mouse.” Jack made a motion towards Will, waving outside the room.

Will peeked his head through the door, glancing around and catching sight of Zeller before anyone else. “We need a tracer,” Will told him quietly, so his voice wouldn’t be heard through the speaker phone. “Now.”

When he returned into the bathroom Jack was standing with the cellphone lying flat on the counter, staring down at it with an intense frown. “So what’s the point of all this?” He was asking. “To call your crime scene and talk to us. What are you looking to accomplish?”

“Well you see, Mr. Crawford, I was actually hopin’ to talk to one of yours. Someone who goes by the name of William Graham.” Zeller came into the room with Price and Beverly then, they brought with them the tracer to hook the phone to and find a location. They just had to keep the killer talking long enough to get a location on him.

“You’re in luck then,” Jack answered, gaze turning towards Will. Will could tell Jack was curious and yet at the same time slightly worried for him, not knowing how the killer knew Will would be there how he even knew who Will was. “He’s here, standing right beside me.”

“Ah, Mr. Graham,” the voice came immediately, able to tell he was on speaker through the echo in their voices no doubt. They had the cell phone hooked to the tracer, now it was only a matter of time until the location came through. “I hope you’ve enjoyed the handiwork I’ve done with Ms. Kimble. Really quite a tart she was. However, I’m afraid this will be the one and only masterpiece of mine you’ll ever see.”

That brought a frown to Will’s face, eyebrows furrowing as he stared at the phone. “You mean you’re handing yourself in or are you killing yourself?”

Another laugh from the other line. “No, no, I don’t plan on stoppin’ any time soon. You on the other hand, Mr. Graham, are going to stop lookin’ for me. You’re gonna stop what you’re doin’ and you’re gonna turn around and go back to where you came from.”

“Where do you get off—“ Jack started but was interrupted by the voice on the other line again, this time much more demanding and aggressive.

“Mr. Graham is gonna leave this case or he’ll find himself missin’ somethin’ I would think very dear to him.” There was a pause, a shuffling. “Go ahead and say hello to Mr. Graham, kiddo.”

“Daddy?”

The voice on the other line had Will’s heart stopping, his hand going out to the counter to keep himself standing. Jack’s eyes were trained on Will, even as he spoke into the phone his gaze didn’t leave the man beside him. “You’re going to add kidnapping to your charges? Are you sure you want to go there?”

“But of course. Ms. Kimble’s death caught your attention and I watched as Mr. Graham dropped this cute little cherub off at a babysitter, a young woman and a small boy all alone? Well that’s not leavin’ much for protection, Mr. Graham. You really ought to be more careful.” There was a beep as the trace got a location. “And that would be my queue to skedaddle. I’ll be holdin’ onto your son, Mr. Graham, until I’ve heard that you’ve disappeared. Not a hair will be harmed on his precious head, I assure you.” A click and the call was lost.

Beverly bit her lip and she turned the tracer around to face Jack and Will, shaking her head slightly. “Call was made from the house of Alana Bloom,” Beverly murmured, tucking a strand of hair away from her face. “Will…I’m sorry.”

Will was pale, he wasn’t moving, he looked like he was about to be sick, his eyes far off somewhere. Jack, though equally as horrified by the realization, jumped to business. “Beverly, I want you to take Will back to his hotel. The rest of you; I need a team back in Baltimore searching through Alana Bloom’s house.”

“I am not going back to that hotel room without my son, Jack.” Will’s tone was rough, commanding, something he hadn’t heard from himself in a long time. It felt like he wasn’t there, like this was all some dream because it sure as hell couldn’t be reality. After all this time of protecting him, of keeping Andrew under a close watch, the first time he’s away from him he’s taken right from underneath Will’s nose.

He wants to puke. He wants to scream. He wants to do anything, but he’s frozen in place, he can’t move, can’t catch up with reality.

“Will,” Jack started, stepping closer to the man. “Will listen to me—“

“No, Jack. You listen to me,” Will was yelling at this point, completely losing control of himself in the situation. “I don’t care what you say, I’m going with you to Alana’s house. I’m going to find my son and the bastard who took him. I’m not going to sit patiently and wait for someone else to clean up after my mistakes!” Andrew was gone; he was in the hands of a murder. After Will had tried so hard to protect him from Will’s old lifestyle, of Andrew’s father’s lifestyle, of anything that could trigger the madness that was undoubtedly passed on through both parents. If there was any thought in Will of leaving this case before it was gone now, Will would not be leaving Baltimore until he had Andrew and the man who had taken him was dead.

Jack was quiet for a minute, searching Will’s face. He didn’t see crazy in Will’s eyes, not the rushed madness of infection like he’d seen before. He saw desperation and panic and an anger that made Jack glad he wasn’t on the receiving end of that anger. Finally he took a step back from Will, knowing that Will would stop at nothing to find his son, even if he told Will to go back to the hotel he was sure Will would be at Alana’s home perhaps even before Jack got there himself. “Alright. Fine, get in the car. The rest of you stay and search the place for clues, call up Baltimore and have them start searching Alana Bloom’s house for any evidence. We’ll be there in forty minutes.”

\--

The police had Alana’s home completely taped off, a slight crowd of people at the police lines wondering what had happened. People getting ready for work, parents getting their children off to the bus at this time, curious as to what had happened on such a quiet little road. Will was silent the entire ride, a silence that Jack didn’t bother breaking, was too afraid to break. He couldn’t imagine what the man next to him was thinking, what could be running through his head. Jack had never had kids of his own, but he’d seen enough grieving parents in his life to know that it was one of the worst things possible.

When they got out of the vehicle Jack went straight for the chief of police, needing information on what they found in the house. Will on the other hand went straight to the ambulance where he could see Alana sitting on the end of it with a blanket wrapped around her. His approach was slow, terrified of what he would hear from Alana’s mouth, terrified of the reality of it all.

As soon as Alana caught sight of Will her heart dropped to her stomach and she had to advert her eyes for a moment. There was an open gash on her forehead, swelling around the wound, like she’d been hit over the head to knock her out. Whoever had knocked her out hadn’t wanted to kill her, or do any more damage than necessary. They stood in front of each other for a long time, neither of them saying anything or looking anywhere but the ground.

“I’m so sorry, Will.” Alana’s voice was broken, she’d been crying, and her apology brought along more tears.

That was all Will needed to hear, a verbal confirmation of what had happened by the person he’d left in charge of Andrew. His knees were too weak to hold him upright and he dropped to his knees in front of Alana, pressing the palm of his hands into his eyes.

“Oh God, Will,” Alana cried again, moving forward off the ambulance to cradle the man on the ground in front of her. “I am so sorry.”


	5. Heart Beat In Reverse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, wow. So it's been a long time since I touched this thing.
> 
> Long story short; I've been without a computer for the longest time. Just got a new cord in for it and guess what I find on my newly powered laptop? This story. And just in time for Hannibal Season 2! Hope you all have been watching and enjoying that!
> 
> So, there's not much more to say on this other than I hope you all are still interested in reading it and I hope I've picked it back up alright. I'm sure my writing style's changed or something given the months it's been since I've touched it but your kudos and comments shall help fuel my muse! Luckily I still know where I want this story to go so nothing's changed and I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Oh! One last note: this was not beta'd by anyone! It's just little ol' me here.

“Do you understand what you’ve done?” Jack Crawford’s voice came from behind Freddie, the door to the room she was being held in banging open with his entrance. Alana Bloom followed behind him, a bandage on her forehead barely noticeable with her carefully blended make-up. Unsurprisingly, Will Graham wasn’t with them. The last Freddie had heard of Graham, the man had been sedated and brought back to a different location under heavy protection.

Freddie’s eyes glanced down to the table as Crawford dumped a file on it, her article on Will’s return pinned to the top.

“A three year old boy’s life is in danger because of you, Ms. Lounds.” The FBI Agent was angry, perhaps more angry than Freddie had ever seen him. The dark haired woman at his side looked equally unimpressed as Freddie ran a hand through her hair, eyes running over her article.

Her eyebrows furrowed, pinching her bottom lip between her teeth. “I didn’t—I didn’t mean for something like this to happen. I didn’t mean for the kid to get hurt.”

“Then what was the point?” Alana asked, her voice hurt and teetering over the edge as she leaned over the table to get closer to the red head. “What was the point of the article? We brought Will in to help us, to capture a killer and save lives. Now Will’s son is in danger and the only way to get him out of it is to lose our one lead. Our one chance at getting this guy.”

“Why bring the kid at all?” Freddie shot back, tired of feeling interrogated and disciplined. “You knew it was dangerous, why put a child so young in the middle of something like this. It’s not exactly surprising, with or without my article, someone was bound to have noticed eventually.”

Alana shook her head, staring at Freddie like she couldn’t believe what was coming out of the woman’s mouth. “There’s nowhere else he could go.”

Freddie pursed her lips and turned to Alana, an equally dangerous look on the woman’s face, leaving Jack to bounce his eyes back and forth between the two women. Like dangerous cats; toying with each other. “Now, I’m no biology major or anything along those lines,” the red head started, running a hand through her hair. “But I believe it takes two to make a child, Ms. Bloom. Surely there could have been some better place for him than in the line of fire.”

“Where the child belonged isn’t the point here, Ms. Lounds,” Jack continued, “The point is that you brought attention to him, you brought out Graham’s weakness to the public.”

This time Freddie just sighed. “What are you going to do, Mr. Crawford? Arrest me? I’ve done nothing wrong, you can’t lock me away for writing the truth.”

“No,” Jack agreed, “I can’t arrest you for what has happened. But if another fault in a case happens and it turns out you’re behind it, I will do something. I’ll make sure you never have another published article in your life. You’re putting people in danger, you’re foolishly laying cards down in a serious web of games and you’re acting like there’s no price in the world you have to pay.” Jack leaned closer to the red head, eyes serious and dark. “You will, though.”

\--

Jack and Alana stood outside the Department building, watching Freddie Lounds being escorted into a cab and taken home. The air was tense around the two of them, silent under a heavy weight of what had happened in the last twenty-four hours.

“I’m going to the motel,” Jack muttered, eyes turning up towards the sky to look at the creeping clouds overhead. The dark weather almost a perfect representation of the mood around the force. “Check on Will. Are you coming along?”

For a moment Alana wanted to say yes. Part of her felt guilty for what had happened and wanted to make sure things were right between her and Will, not that it would have mattered where Andrew had been. The other part of her knew Will Graham enough to know that he couldn’t possibly believe that she _let_ this happen, and Alana had a few other things on her plate she wanted to deal with.

So she shook her head, brushing away a clump of dark hair that had fallen out of its clip and into her eyes. “No—“ she paused, threading her fingers together as she looked over at Jack. “No, I think I have a few things I want to check in on. Tell him I’ll try and see him soon. If not tonight than maybe tomorrow, early.”

Jack nodded and the two of them said their goodbyes, Alana waving Jack off as he drove away, her fingers lightly tracing the bandage on her head before she brought her hand back to her side. She held her things closer to herself as she walked down the stairs to her vehicle.

Her house was still closed off and being searched for evidence, not that she really wanted to be there right now anyway. She’d taken up residence in a motel for now, a different one than they were keeping Will in, moving most of her important paperwork there to have it close at hand. Lately she hadn’t touched much of it though, too shaken up by the events that had unfolded.

There was no way Alana could have done anything, she didn’t even know there was anyone else in her home until it was too late. There had been someone behind her, she’d heard a creak in the floor that hadn’t been her, but before she could turn to see who it was there was something coming down on her. Knocking into her head with enough force to send her vision blurring and stars dancing around her eyes.

Then it was black. And when Alana had come to there’d been the cold chill of something very, very wrong.

Just thinking about it brought the feeling back, and she shook herself, focusing her eyes on the road while bringing one hand from the steering wheel to rub the goosebumps off her arm. Her shoulders feeling heavy with guilt for what had happened, for not being able to protect Will’s son for him. The look on his face, when he’d seen her in the ambulance with no sign of Andrew to been found, when he’d broken down in front of her at the cold hard truth of losing his son—she didn’t want to see that look on Will’s face again. It broke her down, ate away at her, trying to think about what Will must be feeling now.

Alana pulled into the small motel, simple and unnoticed in the rural area of town, the parking lot nearly empty save for her vehicle and two others. She felt safer once inside the small room she was calling home now, dumping her belongings on the bed, except for her messenger bag she’d tossed over her shoulder. That she kept with her until she sat at the desk in front of her laptop, pulling out all the papers she had available on the case at hand; the two murders and Andrew Graham’s kidnapping.

She rubbed at her eyes, unsure of even where to begin. What she was sure of was that they needed Will to catch this man, and the fact that he’s using Will’s son to keep Will away from the case just went to prove how afraid of Graham this man really was.

Her hand sorted through the files until she found Andrew’s, slipping it easily enough from the stack of manila envelopes she had tucked everything away in. She’d hoped that they’d be able to find someone to take care of the boy while they continued to use Will’s insights, a place the boy could stay after the killer thought Will had disappeared. Alana had found nothing so far, not even a mother’s name on the birth certificate. Just Will’s. Everything was in Will’s name, no sign or mention of anyone else in the boy’s life.

Alana sighed, running a hand through her hair before standing up to pour herself a glass of wine from mini fridge in the room. The glass in her hand was cheap but clean at the very least, and she poured herself a healthy amount into it before wandering back towards the desk, her fingers pushing away papers here and there to uncover the ones beneath them.

She sipped at her wine, pausing a moment when her fingers unveiled the photocopy of Andrew’s birth certificate. She’d run her gaze across it at first, looking for a name that wasn’t Will’s or the doctor’s, this time she read it more carefully. The date, the time, the location. Slipping into the seat again while drinking from her glass, she pulled the certificate from the pile of paperwork, able to focus on it more clearly. The glass was set in front of her while she did the math to back when Andrew would have been conceived, granted that he’d been born on time.

A frown appeared on her face when her result came back, double checking to make sure she had it right.

The math would have left Andrew’s conception a month or more before the Lecter case, which was baffling. Will had never once mentioned anything about seeing anyone while working for the force, he’d been too unstable then for any kind of commitment. Alana couldn’t even think of a moment where Will would have had time to go out and find a woman in a bar to have a one night stand with, not that that kind of thing was in Will’s nature anyway.

There was only one other person that could have the answers to Alana’s questions. Someone she hadn’t seen in a long time now, nor did she ever have the urge to. Just imagining the face in her mind, the sound of his voice, sent chills across her arms and down her spine. It was a long shot, but Hannibal Lecter was the only one who knew Will perhaps even more than Alana herself knew Will. If there was anyone who knew of any woman in Will’s life it would be the therapist who got into Will’s life so completely that he’d been able to slip past them all.

Alana lifted her glass of wine to finish it, her free hand reaching for her phone, punching in a number she lifted from memory.

There was a long pause before a familiar voice picked up. “Dr. Fredrick Chilton speaking, how may I be of service?”

“Dr. Chilton? It’s Alana, Alana Bloom. I need to make an appointment for later today.”

\--

There was a chair at the end of the hall in the lowest level of the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane where they were keeping Hannibal Lecter. Alana paused at the door of the hallway, peering down at the chair as if it were a death sentence. Out of all the psychopaths locked down there in the cages around her, Hannibal was one of the most dangerous of them all. He wasn’t a psychopath, not in the dictionary-definition of the word. He was something more dangerous, more predatory than the average serial killer.

He’d gotten close to them all, weaseled his way in without suspicion and made them all believe a truth he’d simply lain out for them to follow. Like birds following a crumb trail deliberately placed into a trap.

For the briefest moment Alana contemplated turning around and simply going back the way she came, figured this out on her own. Hannibal Lecter may have been a brilliant man, but he was fire and even the bravest and most talented fire-tamer gets burned every now and again. Just look at what Hannibal had managed to do to Will himself.

Alana took a deep breath, steeling herself as she held her jacket closer to her chest, as if it would protect her from the madness surrounding her. The clicking of her heels against the cement floor echoed deafeningly in her ears as she headed towards the chair without even realizing she’d started walking. There were noises around her, men coming up to see who was walking down the hall, calling out to her, though she ignored them all. Focused on only one man in this hallway, the one located at the very end, with a chair sitting there waiting for her.

She wasn’t sure what she was expecting to see in that cell, perhaps the shell of the man Hannibal once was. Broken by the years he’d spent behind bars or the torment that she was sure Dr. Chilton put him through. Anything to get answers.

Instead he looked as if no time had passed at all, seated at a chair bolted to the floor with a book held neatly in his hands. He hardly looked up when Alana stepped in front of the cell, setting her jacket over the back of the chair before smoothing out her skirt and sitting down herself. Hannibal’s dark eyes skimmed over the words as he read, waiting for a break in the book before shutting it and placing it neatly in front of himself as he finally turned his attention to Alana.

The man’s maroon eyes had always unnerved her, such a strange and threatening color they were. Like dried blood that had been sitting out for a while. For a moment, as they looked at each other, Alana thought she recognized those eyes somewhere else. She’d seen that maroon somewhere, somewhere besides the man in front of her, but she couldn’t place them.

“I take it from your expression that you’re not here on a long overdue social visit,” Hannibal finally spoke, breaking the silence.

Alana crossed her legs at the knees, folding her hands in her lap and offering the man in front of her a tight and forced smile. “No—“ she replied, “No, I’m afraid it’s not.”

“I’m assuming it must have something to do with the murders,” Hannibal continued, eyes running over to where books and magazines were crowding the table in front of him. “How surprising you’ve come to me, when I see that you’ve already brought in Will Graham.”

There was a silence as the two watched each other, waiting for anything. Like two cobras dancing around each other, just waiting for the other one to strike.

“You know Will is in the area?”

“Of course,” Hannibal answered her. He reached over and pulled one of the magazines from the pile, the pages loose inside. “I’m allowed the paper and medical magazines as long as they remove the staples. I’m not completely up to date but I manage to keep up with what little they give me to work with.”

“What they haven’t put in the papers yet,” Alana broke in, straightening up in her seat. “Was that Will Graham’s son, Andrew Graham, was kidnapped. The killer posed a murder, got their attention, and while they were cleaning up his mess he came for the boy. He thinks that by using the boy he can get Graham to get off the case, promising no harm will come to Andrew if Will leaves.”

“I wasn’t aware Will had a son,” Hannibal interjected in that strange accent of his.

Alana sighed, again shifting in the uncomfortable chair beneath her. “None of us did. Jack found him hiding out with the boy when he went looking for his help.” Alana grabbed the birth certificate and slipped it through the food tray as she’d been told to do, being sure to keep any paperclips or staples from passing through with it. “His birthday suggests that whoever the boy’s mother is—she’s somewhere here in Baltimore or maybe even Wolf Trap where Will used to live. If we can find her and provide someplace safe for Andrew, Will can at least finish up here before they go back.”

She watched as Hannibal’s gaze turned over the paper, calculating theories in his head. It was an expression she’d seen on his face many times before, and could see it in Will’s when he worked as well. It was the putting together of a puzzle, fitting in pieces with clear concentration, like it was a puzzle they’d put together a thousand times before. Alana wished she could see things like that at times, be able to see past the little things and get right to the black and white picture.

When Hannibal didn’t say anything, Alana took this as a sign to continue. “I only spoke with Will briefly during that time,” she admitted, recalling the line between them she’d put there due to Will’s instability at the time. Lecter’s instability, actually, that he’d placed on Will. “But I’d recall anything that had to do with Will having a woman on the side. I was just wondering—if you heard anything? If Will told you of anyone—admitted to sleeping with someone during that time. You were his psychologist and he—he _trusted_ you.”

The dark maroon eyes came up to meet her for the first time since she’d handed him the birth certificate. There was something there, something in his eyes that hadn’t been there when she’d first arrived. Something more dangerous and threatening before, even if it wasn’t pointed at her, it was still there, and it still sent shivers through her.

In a moment the look was gone though, and there was the cool and composed therapist Alana had known all those years. “I see,” he started, his silence almost more threatening than whatever words he had to say. “Well, I cannot say that Will ever spoke to me about a woman he was seeing, nor did he mention a child.” He set the birth certificate in front of him and set his hands in his lap, looking nonchalantly at Alana. “I shall keep this information in mind, however, and have Chilton immediately contact you if a memory arises.”

At the obvious dismissal, Alana glanced towards the birth certificate copy on the table in front of the Chesapeake Ripper. It almost seemed like a waste of time coming here to talk to Will’s tormentor, like she was leaving with more questions than she’d originally arrived with. Part of her wondered what kind of outcome she’d expected of this meeting, but the disappointment at having gotten no farther at understanding who Andrew Graham was left her doubting she even knew herself.

When she stood to leave, she paused at the sound of Hannibal’s voice. “Does Jack Crawford know you’re here, Alana?”

“No, he doesn’t,” she answered, tucking her jacket in closer to herself. “And neither does Will for that matter. I came on my own.”

Hannibal nodded, tucking the birth certificate into his pile of goods and away from prying eyes like Chilton who may walk down after Alana left. “Good, then if I come up with anything I’ll be sure to have Chilton contact you directly and not Jack Crawford.”

Alana nodded, “I’d appreciate that. Goodbye, Dr. Lecter.”

\--

The clock on the bedside table was reading 5:13am by the time Will woke up, the sound of a phone ringing echoing in the empty motel. His body was coated in a layer of sweat, blankets tangled around his feet from an obvious night of tossing and turning. Andrew wasn’t beside him in the bed, he wasn’t subconsciously avoiding him. In fact, Andrew was gone and there wasn’t anything Will could do about it. The thought brought a stabbing pain in his chest and nausea swirling in the pit of his stomach.

He looked around the empty apartment for a moment, ignoring the ringing telephone. It was empty, there was just him and an undercover cop car outside, but it felt more than empty. It had felt empty even when Jack had come to visit him, Will half drugged up on the sedative the medical team had given him. Andrew was gone, momentarily out of Will’s hands and into the hands of a killer. He thought back to his time in the killer’s mind, at the murder. The fog, the out-of-control feeling. He couldn’t imagine someone like that in possession of his child.

When the phone stopped ringing the room became oddly quiet, too quiet for Will, who’d been used to dogs and Andrew running around his feet. It was just him again.

The ringing picked back up, and Will got the feeling that whoever it was, wasn’t just checking up on him. So he stood on shaky legs and headed towards where the phone was in his new location, at the table by the couch. He sat down, running a hand over his sweaty forehead before reaching over and picking up the receiver.

“Graham,” he spoke into the phone, half-awake half-somewhere else.

“Will, it’s Jack.” Jack didn’t need to introduce himself, his voice was obvious enough over the phone. No mistaking it really. “Don’t panic.” Will of course, immediately started panicking. What else could it mean? Had something happened to Andrew? Had there been new news overnight?

“What is it, Jack?” Will asked, an obvious tremor in his voice. His hands were shaking against the phone and he could feel himself sweating again. He needed to hear the answer but at the same time was terrified of it.

“Look, I’m on my way to the apartment now with the boys. We’re moving you somewhere else.”

“Jack, what is going on?!”

“Lecter escaped the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane three hours ago. He knows you’re here to solve the case. We’re moving you out, get your things and let’s go.”


	6. Dizzy On Dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! I'm so glad to see that you guys are still reading and keeping up with this story! That's amazing to me! Just buckle up and great ready for this crazy roller-coaster of a story I have planned for ya! No, really. It's gonna be crazy.
> 
> Thank you guys so much, your excitement and comments have fueled my muse greatly. I actually can't believe I'm posting another chapter so soon. You guys are so awesome and I love you all!
> 
> Hope you enjoy! Once again it wasn't beta'd by anyone, it's just me here!~

Katie Scott hadn’t gotten sleep, she couldn’t sleep. Not after Mikey had come barging into their house at six in the morning with a _toddler_ she’d never seen before in her life. The kid was flimsy and unconscious, obviously drugged, and Mikey—without saying a word to Katie—had dropped him off on their couch and left. He still hadn’t come back either, a day later.

She’d at least been able to get the kid’s name when he came to and realized what exactly was going on. Of course that only made it worse, having the kidnapped child of an FBI agent in her house. Her hands hadn’t stopped shaking around the bottle of booze she kept pouring into her coffee—cup after cup. She’d been awake and drunk for a whole twenty-four hours now and she was still a nervous wreck, the kid—Drew as he called himself, fast asleep on her and Michael’s bed.

The boy didn’t wake up until around eight, at which time she fixed him a bowl of cereal, the only thing she could focus herself enough to do, and a glass of orange juice. She watched as he ate, offering a little conversation to at least try and make the kid feel comfortable. She didn’t know what else to do, she had to talk to Mikey. Right around the time Drew had finished, Katie heard a familiar car pull into the driveway.

“Come on, kiddo,” she whispered, ushering him out of the chair. “Why don’t you go stay in my room for a bit, ok? I’ll come get you when it’s okay to come out. Go on, now. Hurry.” She watched as he hurried up the stairs and to the room she’d let him sleep in before turning a hard gaze to the door, just waiting for Michael to step through.

He looked worse than she’d ever seen him when he did. His hair was a wreck, like he’d been running through the woods all night, tired eyes wide and forehead sweaty. When he saw her, he glanced around the room, presumably checking for the boy. “Where is he?”

Katie glared, one hand set on her hip in a bruising grip, the other hand in a fist at her side. “Who exactly are you talking about, Michael?! I don’t know who ‘he’ is. _Oh_ , perhaps you mean the _three year-old boy_ you dumped on my couch last night? Wait—wait the three year-old _kidnapped_ son of a Goddamn FBI Agent, Michael Ryder! What the fuck were you thinking?!”

“Katie—“ Michael started, but she held her finger centimeters from his face.

“I already know what you’re going to say, Michael. ‘I wasn’t thinking, Katie.’ Or, ‘You know I can’t help it.’. Am I right? Am I in the fucking ballpark?!” She stepped back, trying to collect herself. Michael noticed how badly she was shaking, and there were tears in her eyes. Whether they were from anger or something else he wasn’t completely sure. “You know,” she continued. “I tried—“

“Katie, wait.”

“No, Michael!” She threw her hands to her side. “I’m done. I can’t do this anymore. I thought I could handle it, I really did. But you and your bother…you two are a whole different kind of crazy that I just don’t even have a word for. It’s like—it’s like I’m dating your brother, Michael. There’s no you, it’s just him. You two are the same person and your brother’s _fucking_ mental.” She brought her hand up to wipe away the stray tears that managed to escape.

Michael just watched her, unsure of what to do. He was just as scared as she was, it wasn’t like he could stop his brother from doing what he was doing. If he even tried—who knows what would happen to him, what his own twin would do to him. “Do you want me to leave?”

Katie stared at the ceiling for a long time, biting her lip with a grimace. “Yes. Yes—I think you just need to go. Go back to your brother, or just anywhere. I don’t care.” She watched as Michael made a move to step into the house, ready with her hand out to stop him from going any farther. “No, you can get your things some other time. When I’m gone, preferably.”

“What about the boy?” Michael asked, his eyes wide as he stared at her, deep lines beneath them betraying how unstable he was right now.

Her hand came up to run through her light ash brown hair, trying in vain to push the bangs out of her face. “I’m taking him in, Mike. I’m not going to let your brother do this to a three year-old boy.”

“Oh—I don’t think you’re going to have a choice about that.” The voice came from behind Katie, almost identical to Michael’s own if not just slightly softer. Katie swung around to find Gabriel behind her, having taken the back door when Michael hadn’t come out with the boy.

“Gabriel!” Katie’s eyes were wide, her arm flung out to hold onto the archway, trying to prevent Gabriel from entering the room any farther. “Stop, Gabriel! You have no idea what you’re getting into.”

Gabriel frowned, eyes dangerous and focused, so completely unlike Michael that it looked wrong on a face identical to his. “I don’t know what I’m doing?” He grabbed her arm in a bruising grip, pulling it up and over her head, causing her to hiss as her shoulder popped out of place. “Of course I know what I’m doing.” He tossed her to the floor, turning to Michael when she was down. “Where is he?”

Michael shrugged, shaking his head. “I dunno—I dunno where he is.”

Bending down, Gabriel grabbed a fist full of the woman’s hair, pulling her up to face him. “Where’s the boy, Katie?”

“Fuck you.” When she spit in his face he slammed her head back against the floor, ushering a yelp out of her.

“Where’s the fucking boy?!” Gabriel had a pistol in his hand, pointing the barrel of it against her temple hard enough to cause her to whimper. There was a creaking noise behind the fighting group and Gabriel flashed the gun around and pointed it at the source, finding a small boy in bed rustled clothes at the bottom of the stairs staring wide eyed at the scene in front of him.

“Katie?” Drew asked hesitantly, taking a step backwards.

Katie reached her hand out and grabbed a fist full of Gabriel’s shirt, holding tightly. “Run, kid! Run!”

Drew didn’t waste any more time, turning tail and running towards the backdoor he’d been shown earlier. Gabriel attempted to snatch the boy but was stopped short by Katie’s arm holding him back, instead having to take the time to reach his hand around and swing the butt of the gun into Katie’s head.

Once the girl was slack against the floor, Gabriel turned to Michael, sliding the gun back into the waistband of his jeans. “Kill her. I’m going after the kid.”

\--

The door to Will’s latest hotel opened, catching his attention. He looked up from the case files that had been set in front of him, trying to focus his mind on anything but Andrew or Hannibal Lecter. He’d managed to convince himself that the sooner he got the FBI a lead, the sooner they could find this guy and get Andrew back, which lead him to hours of just staring at photos and paperwork, waiting for something to pop out at him.

Alana Bloom stood at the door, sliding off her jacket as she spoke to one of the guards positioned inside the hotel with Will. “I’d like to speak with Will, privately, if I could.” The guard nodded to her and ushered the other man inside out the door with him, keeping close by in the hallway in case anything were to happen.

Making her way inside the relatively small hotel room, Alana dropped her coat off on the end of the unused bed. She headed over to the table where Will was seated, taking the chair opposite him. Will could see the bandage on her forehead, swallowing the lump in his throat at the reminder of where she’d gotten it from. Her expression was serious and obviously upset, which Will could sympathize with at the moment, but was wondering what could have made that expression on her face.

When she didn’t immediately say anything, Will picked up a couple of photos of two of the victims. “I—uh. I haven’t been able to find a clear lead,” he started, eyebrows furrowing slightly. “But there’s a pattern in work shifts—“

“Hannibal Lecter is Andrew’s father, isn’t he Will?”

Will’s heart stopped, his breathing stopped. It felt like everything within him stopped, even his thought process. Like the floor had disappeared but wasn’t swallowing him up, instead he was just suspended there on nothing. “E—excuse me?” He finally managed to make words but he wasn’t really sure where they came from. The fear of everyone finding out about Andrew’s parentage hadn’t crossed his mind since Andrew had been taken and now, with that pressure added to what he was already under, he felt like crumbling.

Alana reached out and grabbed his hand, now empty of the pictures that had fallen out of his lax grip. “Will—Will, it’s ok.” She tried to get him to make eye contact with him but he slipped his hand from hers and stood, knocking the chair to the floor. “Will.”

“No, no. It’s not, okay, Alana.” She could tell he was panicking.

“Will, you think I haven’t heard of a case like this before?” She stood up as well, putting her hand out to his shoulder, despite his attempts at brushing her off. “I’ve heard of men being able to conceive a child before, I’ve seen it.” She sighed when Will just stared at her, offering the man a small reassuring smile. “Besides, it made a little more sense than you having some affair with a woman none of us knew about.”

Will seemed to settle down but unfortunately didn’t calm completely, still shaken by the fact that his secret was out. “Have you,” he paused, reaching his hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. “Have you told Jack yet?”

Alana bit her lower lip slightly, moving to take her seat back at the table. “No,” she muttered, “But I think we should.”

Will turned back to the table at that, quickly, like she’d struck him. “Why? Why does Jack need to know?”

“Because,” Alana started, running a hand through her hair. “Because Hannibal could be after Andrew, Will.”

Moving back towards the table, Will shook his head frantically. “No—no. Hannibal Lecter doesn’t know about Andrew, he would have no reason to. I made sure he _never_ found out.”

Alana shuffled in her seat, nervous about admitting what she’d done to Will, how Dr. Lecter’s escape could be put solely on her. “I went to see Hannibal,” she finally admitted, eyes going to meet Will’s. He looked at her with a slight look of bafflement, like he couldn’t understand why. “I was searching for information on Andrew. I wanted to find a location for him once we got him back, if we still needed you. I thought Hannibal would know. You trusted him, more than you trusted any of us.”

Will’s eyes went wide as he listened, staring at Alana. “So you told Hannibal about Andrew?”

“He must have figured it out,” she continued, “He saw Andrew’s birth certificate. I never took it back from him, and when they searched his cell it was gone. He took it with him.”

“You told _Lecter_ about Andrew?!” Will repeated, like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Not only had _someone_ found out about Andrew’s parentage but Hannibal Lecter had found out.

Alana frowned, standing again. “Will, I didn’t know. You didn’t exactly tell any of us _anything_ , how was I supposed to know, Will?”

Will cut her off with a wave of his hand, turning towards his fallen chair to retrieve the jacket that he’d tossed on it, now on the floor. He threw it on, fingers fumbling with the keys in his pocket as he headed towards the door. “I need to go somewhere. Lock the door when you leave.”

“Where are you going, Will?” Alana asked, worry evident in her voice.

“I don’t know,” he answered, shaking his head. Fingers grabbing at his curls as he walked out. “Anywhere. Just—I need to get away for a little while. _Think._ ”

\--

The house was silent when Hannibal Lecter walked in, the only sound coming from the scuffing of the plastic he wore over his clothes. Immediately the smell of blood and cleaning solution hit his nose, following the trail to a woman lying on the floor by the stairs. He approached the body, eyes running over the deep gouges in her face, making it unrecognizable.

Other than the body there was no blood anywhere, nothing out of place in the house. Carefully placed back together after whatever had happened here.

Hannibal walked over the body, focusing his eyes instead on the walls around him, the pictures hung there. Most of them were of a woman, the woman on the floor if the body shape and hair color had anything to say about it. There was a man in a couple of the pictures however, and Hannibal leaned closer to the photographs to get a good look at him.

He was young, perhaps late twenties at the most. With dark hair and hazel eyes. He was clean shaven too, dressed nicely and in brands Hannibal recognized, which showed that he wasn’t broke nor desperate for money. Walking farther into the room, Hannibal searched through drawers with his gloved hands, searching for any kind of male name that could give him more of an idea on who he was looking for.

It took him longer than he would have liked but he eventually found a name. Michael C. Ryder. Apparently, if the address on the letter was anything to go by, the man lived with the dead woman on the floor. He was clumsy to leave these behind if he didn’t want to be caught.

Snatching the one letter left behind before turning back to snatch the photos of the man off the wall, Hannibal exited the house. He now had more of a lead on the whereabouts of Andrew Graham and the serial killer than the FBI would, who had yet to even search the house Hannibal had located. More of a lead than even Will Graham himself had.

\--

Hannibal had left the scene long before Jack Crawford and the force had gotten wind of another victim of ‘The Cheetah’. He heard the force moving in on the police radar that had been installed in the car he’d taken, the body of its owner already preserving in Hannibal’s latest location. He’d been on his way back there when he caught sight of something on the side of the road, something that made him take a second glance.

Slowing the vehicle, he pulled onto the far lane closest to the sidewalk, rolling down the passenger window as he glanced around to see not even an undercover cop car in sight. “Dangerous to be walking alone so unprotected,” Hannibal spoke, stopping the car when the body he was spoken to froze. “I would think Jack would keep you nestled tightly under his wing during such a crisis.”

Will turned his head, cursing his luck as he saw a face he’d been trying to forget for three years staring back at him from behind the wheel of a dark car. “I needed to take a walk,” he replied courtly. Jack had called to tell him about the latest murder but had urged Will to keep away, in case it was another trap. Instead Will managed to run himself right into the very hands of the devil himself.

“Understandable,” Hannibal spoke back, as if they hadn’t been away from each other in three years. As if nothing had happened between them at all. As if he _weren’t_ an intelligent cannibalistic murderer and the two of them were having a normal everyday conversation. “Given the circumstances I can see where it may be beneficial to escape and think on one’s own.” There was a long moment of silence between them, in which Will could feel Hannibal’s gaze running over him. Again, and again. Taking in his stature and everything that had changed in the past three years.

“I’m curious as to why you haven’t run away from me yet, Will,” Hannibal finally continued when he saw that Will was going to keep silent. “Given your talent at running away and hiding.”

Will shook his head, a slightly nervous and forced chuckle escaping him. “Why should I run, Dr. Lecter? You won’t hurt me, you can’t hurt me. I know you well enough to know that there’s some _sick_ , perverse part of you that thinks you could actually _care_ for me.” Will turned so that he was completely facing the man in the car—if he could be called a man. “You used the word ‘love’ once, but I don’t think you really know what that word means yourself.” He threw his hands up in a desperate fashion. “Alana told me that she went to see you, that you now _know_.” Will paused there, now at a loss for words because he’d never thought this far. Never thought he’d ever have to worry about Hannibal Lecter finding out about Andrew, _their_ son.

Hannibal’s gaze on Will was firm and unwavering, his expression nearly unreadable in the darkness of the car. “Then a part of you must also realize that if there were anyone to solve this case it would be you and I.” Hannibal didn’t need to say anymore for Will to realize that it was the truth. Even before everything happened it was always Hannibal leaving him clues, leading him to the people responsible, in his own morbid ways.

There was a heavy silence between them, where Will wanted to turn and walk away but also wanted to desperately grasp at the one person who could help him see Andrew again. He was torn and he didn’t know what to do, fighting with himself on what he _should_ do. A motion caught Will’s attention, and he turned his gaze to see Hannibal’s hand setting a photograph and envelop on the dash of the car.

Maroon eyes watched Will closely with an air of danger about them as Will looked at the photograph. Hannibal was able to see the desperation in Will’s face, just as Hannibal felt a raging desperation to hunt down the man who’d taken his son, a son that he’d never even known existed. He reached over the passenger’s seat and opened the car door. “Get in the car, Will.”

So he did.


	7. I Got Screws Missing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm sorry. It has been a very long time since I've revisited this story.
> 
> I haven't completely forgotten about it, though, and I hope this chapter can draw you all back in as it drew me back in. Things are getting intense and I'm enjoying myself. :)
> 
> Hope you're not too upset about how late this chapter is...but I shall try my best to make up for it and finish this once and for all.

Alana had barely made it through the door of her motel when the phone started ringing, tossing her things on the table top to answer it. “Alana Bloom speaking,” she spoke into the receiver, carefully holding it between her cheek and her shoulder.

“Alana.” It was unmistakably Jack’s voice and Alana bit her lip slightly, holding herself back from explaining everything to the man despite Will’s reaction to her mention of doing so. “Have you heard word from Will? I tried his motel and the guards say they haven’t seen him in hours.”

Not quite sure how to answer that, Alana frowned slightly, running a hand through her hair. “Uh—I did see him earlier.” She sighed, not wanting to lie about the situation despite also not being able to fully explain it without Will there with her. “Jack, he’s upset. Really upset, and he has a right to be. Will told me that he needed some space, needed privacy to think. He’ll be fine, and he’ll come back when he’s cleared his head a little. Maybe even with a new lead, you know how he is.”

There was a sigh from the other end as well, a heavy one that spoke of the stress they were all under. Alana couldn’t even begin to imagine how Will himself was feeling. Neither she nor Jack had ever had children so they couldn’t comprehend the feeling of losing a child—even temporarily—but the fear of losing anyone in their line of work always haunted the backs of their minds.

“Alright,” his voice was even heavier than his sigh and Alana could just picture him leaning deeper into his office chair. “Alright, but if you see him before I do tell him I’ve got some information for him. It’s not much, but maybe he can see more than we can. He always does.”

Alana paused, staring at the ceiling for a moment, bringing a hand up to pinch at the bridge of her nose. “How long is this going to go on, Jack? Are you ever going to be able to let Will go? You dragged him back into this, and now look what’s happened.”

“You think I don’t know that, Alana? You think I don’t think about that every minute I’m on this case?”

Another sigh escaped Alana, and her frown deepened. “I’m sorry, Jack. You know I didn’t mean it to come out like that. It’s been hard on all of us, alright?” Her fingers traced the phone cord, listening to the sounds of rustling papers coming from the other end. “Look, I’ve got some work that I need to get caught up on. Been slacking since I moved locations.” Her fingers moved from tracing the cord to the small pile of files she’d left on the coffee table by the phone. “I’ll let Will know though, if I see him sooner rather than later.”

“Thank you, Alana.” There was the sound of the phones being disconnected as Jack hung up, and Alana nodded to the receiver before placing it back on the phone to hang it up.

Alana wasn’t sure where Will had gone off to but she felt guilty for what she’d put him through, for what she’d done.

Letting herself fall to the couch, she scrubbed her hands across her eyes, trying to clear the heaviness she felt behind them. The heaviness of guilt that she felt clouding over her, realizing it was her fault Hannibal was out there—hunting down Will or Andrew she couldn’t be sure. Lecter wasn’t something they needed on the loose right now, not with everything else that was happening around them.

Alana wished there was more that she could do for Will, help locate Andrew for him with some magical wave of a wand. If only it were that easy. Not that Will could ever do anything the easy way, it was always the back roads, the roads less traveled for him. She supposed that was what made him so special in his own unique way.

\--

It was a nightmare.

Will could tell before he completely woke from it, still stuck in that half realization of being awake in a dream. Andrew was there, somewhere close enough to hear though it was too dark to see anything around him. He kept hearing Andrew calling out to him, the sound coming from everywhere and yet nowhere at all.

“Andrew!” Will kept calling back to the boy, trying to reach him somehow through the darkness. Of course there was nothing, no matter how hard he fought, Andrew’s voice never got any closer or any farther away and the darkness never faded or let up either. “Andrew—“

His voice broke after getting out the name, eyes finally snapping open with the sound of his own name ringing lightly in his ears in a deep baritone voice. “Will. Will, wake up.”

There was a cool hand against the warmth of his forehead, firm and almost calming as he woke up from his jumbled horrors. Hannibal’s face was hanging above him and slightly to his left, hovering in the darkness around them. It should have been a menacing sight—after everything that had happened between them. After everything the man had done. However, Will felt no fear or discomfort at the sight and instead was relieved to be free from the nightmare’s grasp.

A shuffling in his seat told Will he was still in a vehicle, though the lack of movement suggested that it wasn’t moving. “Where are we?”

Hannibal himself glanced around them, as if needing to check for himself before being able to answer Will’s question. “Brick,” was the answer he was given. “At the home of one of my former patients. He would not mind us using it for the time being.”

“Did you kill him?”

“No.” The look Hannibal gave him was almost unreadable. Or perhaps Will had blocked Hannibal from his thoughts for so long that he couldn’t remember what that look meant. Either way, Will was unsatisfied.

Before he could speak his dissatisfaction aloud, Hannibal was opening the car door and stepping outside with a rush of air much cooler than inside the car. With the nightmare still fresh in his mind he swore he could hear Andrew’s voice carried across on the wind as he opened his own door to follow Hannibal who had already started up the steps of the front porch.

“You haven’t said much.” Will spoke while ascending the stairs. Hannibal unlocking the door with a key Will wasn’t sure how he acquired. “It’s rather uncharacteristic of you.”

The door opened and Hannibal ushered Will inside. “You were asleep, I thought it best not to wake you. I cannot imagine you’ve been getting much sleep lately, have you, Will.” It was a statement and not a question.

A deep inhale of the warm air inside helped settle Will’s swarming thoughts, though not by much. “I meant about Andrew,” he amended, lips twitching slightly. “As unwavering as you are, Dr. Lecter, I can’t imagine the news was taken lightly.”

Again, Will found that he could not read Hannibal’s expression—at least not like he could three years ago. Frustration filled him at that thought.

“How did you feel when you found out you were a parent, Will?”

“Rude, isn’t it? To answer a question with another question,” he countered, slipping out of his coat that he hung on the back of a chair in the dining room they’d walked into.

Head cocking slightly, Hannibal’s maroon gaze traveled across Will’s face as if the words were written there for him in great detail. For a long moment there was nothing, the sound of them breathing barely audible in the deafening silence. After minutes had passed and there was no answer Will was convinced that he would not be given one—and instead started further into the house before being stopped by Hannibal’s voice.

“I felt angry.” Turning so he could face Hannibal once more, Will looked at him with a puzzled expression. Seeing that he had once again captured Will’s attention, he continued. “At first I was angry that something like that had been kept from me—angry at you for keeping this from me. However that anger was soon directed towards the man who has taken what doesn’t belong to him.”

It went quite for a moment and Will waited to see if there was anything more Hannibal had to say. When it was obvious that Hannibal had said his piece, Will frowned at him. “That’s it?”

“My answer displeased you.”

Stepping farther back into the room he’d just tried to escape from, Will moved closer to the taller man. “We haven’t seen each other in three years. Alana brought you the birth certificate of _our_ son. Which, by the way, is kidnapped by a psychotic murder. And you’re just angry?”

In what felt like the quickest second of his life Will felt the hard press of the counter at his lower back, not hard enough to bruise but firmly pressed against it regardless. Hannibal’s hand was on his chin instead of where he pictured it, on his neck. He gazed up into the hot maroon eyes identical to Andrew’s with a hard stare.

“Do I not have a reason for being angry?” Hannibal asked, voice no more than a low growled whisper. The hand that was not holding Will’s chin untucked the shirt from his pants and the warm thumb ran along the scar from hip to hip. “You kept something very important from me, Will. A child isn’t like a bad habit you can keep hidden from someone.”

“What could you have done? You were institutionalized. What would people have thought if they’d known?”

“I would have known. As the father of that child I should have at least known; you took that right from me unjustly.”

Putting some muscle into his shove Will managed to get the larger man off and away from him, though Hannibal took an extra step back on his own accord in a nonaggressive manner. Will could feel Hannibal’s eyes on him as he stuffed his shirt back into the waistband of his pants. “I need a minute,” he said, moving back towards the door out of the dining room. “I’ll find the bathroom on my own.”

Before Will completely disappeared down the hallway, he grabbed the doorframe and looked backwards into the room Hannibal was still standing in. “For the record,” he added. “I didn’t find out until I had already left all of this behind. I wasn’t flying back to Baltimore just to pass on the news.”

\--

Andrew made sure to sit still despite the stinging coming from his head, the alcohol cleaning the wound that had only just completely stopped bleeding. He watched the face of the man in front of him, eyes on the light birthmark on his neck just below his ear almost hidden by his hair. It was the only way to tell the twins apart; Michael and Gabriel. The birthmark was on the kinder twin, Andrew decided. Michael.

Kinder because he was taking the time to clean the wound the other twin, Gabriel, had caused. Something had slammed into the back of his head. Andrew had no idea what it was because he’d been running, or trying to run but he had nowhere to go. In a city he was unfamiliar with he had no idea where Katie wanted him to run, where he could have ran.

A particularly painful rubbing of the alcohol covered cotton ball had Andrew biting the inside of his cheeks to keep from making noise. The last time he had whimpered in pain Gabriel had pinched him hard in the ribs to make him shut up.

“You shouldn’t have hit him,” Michael muttered quietly as he worked at the boy’s head wound. “We said we wouldn’t touch ‘im if Graham left the state. This could hurt our case—if we even had one to begin with.” His eyes hardened slightly as he spoke, Andrew noticed his pupils getting smaller.

“He was runnin’.” Gabriel’s voice was much crueler that Michael’s, like something was missing in his tone. Something important. “You have no one to blame but the dead bitch you loved so much. Worked out real well for ya, didn’t it? Keepin’ her around.”

Andrew watched the muscles clench in Michael’s cheek and heard the light grinding of his teeth moving against each other. He found it easier to watch and pay close attention to Michael than it was to even listen to Gabriel. His tone and words were cruel and something Andrew wasn’t used to—so unlike his dad’s voice.

He missed his dad. Missed the dogs. He missed home.

Michael turned to move away from him, the action so sudden to the boy lost in thought he reached out and took hold of Michael’s hand with a contained whine. The kinder twin looked down at him with hazel eyes, watching the young boy for a moment before pulling him out of the chair by his hand and ushering him close to his side.

“Come,” he spoke. “We’ll get you something cold. It’ll take the swelling down.” When they walked past Gabriel, Michael kept himself between them while Andrew grasped his hand tightly. “Does it hurt?”

With a glance back towards Gabriel, Andrew offered a quick and slight nod that left a light ringing in his ears.

Michael followed Andrew’s gaze towards his brother and gave a reassuring squeeze to the boy’s hand. “Gabriel,” he called out, causing the boy beside him to go stiff. “Get online. See if there’s any news about Graham leavin’.”

There wasn’t a reply but Andrew could hear movement back in the other room and the sound of a laptop opening up. Before he could listen more closely to the other room he was pulled into the kitchen by Michael who opened the freezer and took out a bag of frozen vegetables.

“We ain’t got any ice, just this.” He wrapped the frozen bag in a dish towel and crouched beside Andrew, softly placing the covered bag on his head where the wound was. “Keep this right here.”

Andrew did as he was told, moving his hand under Michael’s to keep the cold on the hot wound. He was ushered over to one of the chairs at the dining table and sat down, watching as Michael moved to the cupboards and pulled out two glasses before filling them with water and returning to sit at the table. Michael placed one of the glasses in front of Andrew and encouraged him to drink.

“You’ll need it,” he said. “The hit to your head made you fall asleep for a long time. You could get dehydrated. That wouldn’t be very good.”

Watching Michael’s face, Andrew lifted the glass to his lips and took a long sip from it. He hadn’t realized how thirsty he had been until he’d finally swallowed and then he quickly took in another mouthful of the cool water.

A hand on his stopped him from taking a third gulp.

“Not so quickly,” Michael commented, taking his hand away when the boy stopped gulping at it like a fish out of water.

There was a commotion in the other room, swears muttered under a hot and angry breath as suddenly Gabriel stood in the doorway of the kitchen. His hot hazel eyes were staring at Andrew while the young boy flinched backwards in his seat at his sudden and terrifying presence.

“Gabriel—?” Michael’s voice sounded from beside Andrew but it was cut off before he could finish.

“How old are you?” Gabriel’s voice was—if possible—even crueler than before. It was rushed with his fury and his hands were shaking, balled into fists at his side.

Quickly, before Andrew could register what was happening, Gabriel was on him. Pushing him into the wooden chair as he stood over him, one hand hard and grasping at his shoulder.

“Gabriel! What the fuck are you doin’?!”

With his free hand Gabriel pointed warningly at Michael, causing his twin to back off and away from the boy. “We take Graham’s kid and suddenly Hannibal-fuckin’-Lecter escapes Baltimore State Hospital?” Gabriel shook his head violently. “I don’t believe in coincidences.”

Bringing his attention back to Andrew he tightened his hold on the boy. Enough to produce a whimper. “When were you born, kid?”

“April 17th,” Andrew answered hurriedly, “I’m three years old.”

The hand left his shoulder and immediately changed victims, grabbing Michael’s shirt and pulling him closer. “Coincidence my ass. That’s Lecter’s kid. Lecter and that fuckin’ FBI.” Darting back to Andrew like a panicked tiger, Gabriel snarled. Upper lip pulled up to show off teeth. “Who’s your father?!”

“Will…Will—“ Andrew tried replying but was only rewarded with a pinch to the ribs again.

“Not him. Your other parent. You must have a mother—or another father.”

Desperately Andrew shook his head. “No. No—it’s just me and daddy. No mommy. I swear. Promise.” Gabriel released the boy and Andrew quickly slid from the chair and moved behind it, putting it between him and his biggest threat in the room.

Gabriel’s attention, however, was back on Michael.

“Get out there,” he growled to his twin. “Lead them away from this house. I don’t care if you have to travel all night. I want the girl in Chatsworth. That should lead them far enough away.”

Michael stepped forward, frowning and shaking his head. “Gabe, you’re not thinking straight. We shouldn’t be out there at all right now. We should lay low.”

Andrew didn’t want Michael to go away. He didn’t want to be alone with Gabriel.

A gun was in Gabriel’s hands now, taken from the waistband of his jeans. An eerie calmness had settled over the room and Andrew shivered slightly in the suffocating feeling. He watched as Gabriel smiled and settled the gun in Michael’s open hand.

“You don’t have a choice.” Feeling Andrew’s eyes on him Gabriel turned back towards the boy, though he didn’t take a step closer. “Do you want to see a magic trick?” With his hands now free of the gun, Gabriel flicked on the stove that he and Michael were standing beside. The burner closest to Michael began glowing red.

“Gabe, no.”

Gabriel didn’t listen, instead keeping his calm smile on Andrew. “Watch closely.”

Before Andrew knew what to expect Gabriel reached out and grabbed the burner closest to him and at the same exact time, Michael did the same. Only Michael’s burner was on and instantly the smell of cooking flesh hit the room, choking Andrew as Michael screamed.


	8. Your Animal Side

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep. Not dead; I know what a surprise.
> 
> Sorry to leave you all hanging like this; I'm not even sure if anyone even remembers this story haha! But I recently started rewatching Hannibal and went ahead and added some more to this story.  
> I don't want to promise to have frequent updates on this and then not follow through with it; so I'm not promising anything, but I would like to see this story get finished eventually. It's been such a long time though, I'm sure my writing style has changed quite a bit since I started this fic. (I may or may not have been spending the past year or more RP-ing on Tumblr to refine my writing...) But I digress.
> 
> I do not own Hannibal and this story is no longer being beta'd. (It hasn't been for quite a few chapters, I'm pretty sure...) Read at your own risk, or whatever.
> 
> Bon appetit.

Three photographs and an electricity bill. That’s all they had.

Will’s eyes were starting to cross the more he searched for something, anything, within their shallow depths. He was tempted to return to the house Hannibal had taken the evidence from, but the knowledge that Jack and the rest of the FBI were there doing their own search kept him away. Perhaps later, after they’d gone.

No doubt Jack would have already guessed that Will had struck out on his own. Though perhaps not totally on his own; Will thoughtfully added with a half-glance towards the door. It was quiet across the house and he couldn’t help but shiver at the knowledge of the silent predator somewhere within the walls.

Turning his attention back towards one of the photographs, Will’s finger traced along the edges to pull it closer as he stood hovering above the table he’d scattered them across. Fingertips grazing across the neck of the man in the picture… as if he could reach through and wrap his whole hand around that neck by sheer force of his will. All the anger he’d harbored throughout the years of his work was nothing compared to the hot churning feeling he felt towards this one man.

An inner beast kept caged behind a door—now banging to be released.

“Are you alright, Will?”

What was perhaps more startling than the voice behind him was his complete lack of reaction to it, as if his presence was almost natural. To think of Hannibal like that after all these years made his stomach churn slightly but that was it. Instead he turned his head towards the voice in a slow and deliberate motion, catching sight of Hannibal at the door frame with a bottle of wine and two glasses. He wanted to scoff at the familiarity of it all. It was almost too surreal.

“You need to ask?” There was a bitterness in Will’s voice that he could not restrain, though the sound of it brought some relief—Some smack of reality.

Hannibal stepped into the room, his movement as graceful and fluid as Will remembered, making no sound with each step. He placed the glasses on the table and opened the wine, pouring the dark liquid into the glasses with deliberate finesse. “I suppose not.” The Lithuanian handed Will one of the glasses before taking hold of his own, maroon eyes, as dark as the wine, watching as Will’s lips touched the glass and his throat moved with the action of drinking.

“It won’t be long now until they report on your absence with the FBI,” Hannibal continued after having sipped at his own glass. “Perhaps then Mr. Ryder will come forth again with new information about Andrew’s whereabouts.”

Will couldn’t help the flinch that struck him at the name of his son falling from Hannibal’s lips. Something he’d never wanted to hear but now found himself warming at the sound of it. It promised the end of this torture—Their history was nothing if not brutal and Will wanted to rain that brutality down on whomever dared lay a hand on their son: and now he had the means to do so.

A curiosity struck Will then, and before he could think on it the words were falling from his lips, desperate for an answer. “What will you do after I have Andrew back? Turn yourself in again so we always know where to find you?” The tone was mocking in an attempt to cover up the true fear behind the question.

It seems Hannibal knew him all too well, however. A smirk turning his lips upward as he sipped at the glass in his hand, eyes never leaving Will’s gaze. He set the glass down on the table and took a step closer to Will, the former agent immediately feeling an increase in temperature. “There was a time,” Hannibal spoke, answering with a sense of vagueness that was not uncommon for him. “When we had the opportunity to be a family; you, Abigail, and I. Before it shattered and fell apart into haunting ruins before us.”

Hannibal took another step closer so Will could feel the heat of his breath on his face, the scent of wine on his lips. “Poor decisions were made with haste and without fear of the consequences.” Hannibal’s head cocked to the side slightly as his gaze penetrated Will’s, a rough intrusion of feeling. “To the point where we both lost something quite dear to us. Why should we be so foolish as to let it slip between our fingers again?”

A strong hand grasped at the back of Will’s neck, pulling their bodies together and bringing a rough exhale of air from Will’s mouth. “I will not let you go.” The glass slipped from Will’s fingers like Hannibal’s metaphor, shattering once it hit the floor and staining the carpet with the dark wine. Neither of them paid attention to that; instead they came together as if a drawn in by a savage force.

Lips collided with the desperation of long-lost-lovers and the hunger of a starving animal; all primal need and misery. Clinging onto each other for the sense of what they once had, mixed with the need to escape their current reality. For Will, there was a disturbing comfort in Hannibal’s warm and engulfing embrace, something that momentarily settled frayed nerves and stole away at the pressing fear. He needed that, needed something that would take him away for just a moment. So he allowed himself to drown.

\--

Andrew stood on top of the closed toilet lid, peering at Michael’s hand as he held it under cool water. It looked bad, but smelt worse. His eyebrows knitted together harshly at the sight of it; skin bubbled up into blisters that were white and filled with liquid. Michael was careful and deliberate while cleaning it though, as if it were something he did often. It reminded Andrew of his daddy and how he’d always known what to do when Andrew scrapped his knee or got stung by a bee.

“Why did you do that?” Andrew asked, his voice small and low so that Gabriel couldn’t hear him while he packed bags for Michael’s departure. His footsteps crossing by the bathroom door every once in a while. “Why did you burn your hand?”

The look Michael gave Andrew was a familiar one, something that his daddy gave him while saying ‘You’ll understand when you’re older’. He felt a pinch of irritation at that expression. After everything he’d been through in the last few days he felt he deserved somewhat of an explanation. Even if he couldn’t really understand it—Anything was better than nothing. He felt confused and lost, he missed his daddy and his dogs. He wanted to be able to trust the one person who seemed like he wouldn’t hurt him, but Michael seemed just as unpredictable as his brother now.

As if he could read Andrew’s thoughts, Michael let out a sigh and turned off the running water with his good hand before turning to fully face they young boy. “Ya understand that Gabriel and I are twins, right?” He asks, his own voice low. Andrew nodded, keeping his lips pursed as he listened. “Well we’re a special kind of twins—”

Andrew’s eyebrows raised at that. “Like you can read each other’s minds?” He sounded both awestruck and horrified at the same time, Michael couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Sure, well kinda. I guess that’s a good way of explainin’ it. But ya can understand how hard it is for me with Gabriel as…unstable as he is.”

“He’s crazy.” Andrew stated it as pure fact, not insulting or angry, only informatory. Something only a child could accomplish. It brought another chuckle out of the older man.

Michael nodded, and gave the young boy an affectionate pat on the head. “Yeah…I suppose that is the proper word for it.”

Andrew looked down at his feet for a moment, crawling down from where he stood on the toilet to sit on the closed lid instead. He looked afraid for a moment, chewing lightly at his lower lip while kicking his bare feet against the cool porcelain. “Please don’t leave me alone with him. I’m really scared. Can’t you just take me back to my daddy? Maybe…maybe my daddy can keep you safe from your brother?”

A smile spread across Michael’s face, but it did little to cover the sadness in his eyes. “I’m gonna try and get ya to yer daddy as quick as I can. For now though, you need to do exactly what I say and be as quiet and good as possible. Gabe won’t hurt ya, he wouldn’t risk that, but just keep your distance and try not to make him angry. You’ll be fine.”

Maroon eyes peered up at him from behind dark bangs, a couple tears slipping down the young boy’s cheeks.

Michael stared back at those eyes, unable to shake Gabriel’s words from his head because, Jesus Christ, he did recognize those insouciant eyes staring back at him from a newspaper or television screen. “Don’t cry,” he whispered, ripping away a piece of toilet paper for the boy to wipe his face with. “Ya like dogs right?” Andrew nodded while dragging the toilet paper across his eyes. “Think of Gabe like a big dog; don’t go near him and don’t let him know yer afraid. Dogs can smell the fear on ya,” Michael told the young boy, touching his finger to the small chest where he could feel the boy’s heart pounding. “So don’t let him see ya cry, just keep away. Think ya can do that for me?”

Michael waited for the boy to nod before standing and moving towards the door. With one hand on the door knob, he turned back to the young boy still sitting on the toilet seat. “Stay in here for a little while. Get yerself cleaned up. I’ll tell Gabe yer getting’ washed and he should leave ya be for a while.” A pause as he breathed in deeply. “I’ll be back in a bit, kid. Just do what he says and keep yer distance. I’m gonna try and get you back to yer daddy as soon as I can. Just listen to what I said, yeah?”

Andrew watched the door close behind Michael and suddenly felt very alone. The man’s words had stirred up some confidence, but whatever had been built up went out the door with him. He tossed the toilet paper into the trash bucket and looked around the unfamiliar bathroom for somewhere to hide. Turning towards the sink, he thought about tucking himself into the cupboard that was surely big enough to fit inside for a long period of time without having to stretch his legs; but that’s when a glimmer of light caught his eye.

Throwing back the curtain, the window behind it was his saving grace. Through the window he saw he was ground level and a truck loaded with a few bags in the back and could only guess that’s what Michael was using to leave.

It was a struggle to get the window open, lack of use making the window move inches at a time. Once it was open however, the screen behind it was pushed out easily enough; old plastic snapping as the whole piece fell to the grass below. Andrew threw his arms out the window and used the cupboard as leverage with his foot to roll out the open window landing among the grass and broken screen. If it hurt, he wasn’t sure, just knowing he had to get into the truck before it left.

\--

What had started in the study had ended with them both in the bedroom. Will’s jacket and shirt somewhere on the desk in the forgotten room, along with their shoes and at least Hannibal’s own jacket. He’d managed to peel the blazer off the larger man and undo most of the buttons from his shirt, yet hadn’t managed to slip it over broad shoulders before a firm grip on the back of his neck and hip bone lead him into a bedroom down the hall. Only realizing it was a bedroom when something hit the back of his knees and the grip on him released as he tumbled backwards into a plush comforter.

A hot gasp escaped his lips before being quickly swallowed up by the beast above him. It was almost as if no time had passed between them at all; never a pause in their motions, knowing just where to touch. Despite everything Will wanted to believe, they knew exactly how to manipulate each other—how to satisfy each other. A never-ending and tormenting game between the two of them that neither of them could give up.

Hot fingers against his chest drew forth enough competence to drag expensive fabric across Hannibal’s tan shoulders; lips and teeth following closely behind his fingers as he buried his face against the other man’s neck. His scent was the strongest there, a hint of cologne and shampoo right at the start of his hair that tickled at Will’s nose and drew up the hair on the back of his own neck. At the same time, electric shivers followed Hannibal’s fingers down his back while Hannibal crawled over him like predator he was—Will followed, dragging himself higher up the bed so he could lay without his feet dangling off the edges.

An impatient flush ran over Will, fingers tugging at the button of his pants before he was halted by another hand that took over. Hannibal, unlike himself, was always steady no matter what the scenario was; murder, deceit, or even sex. Will found it infuriating and erotic at the same time; he wanted to wrap his fingers around Hannibal’s unwavering neck and choke him, but instead snatched the back of it and suffocated him with his lips instead. It brought the same satisfaction—Along with the coiling of heat and pleasure in the pit of his gut, gnawing at him in a way that was almost painful as he squirmed beneath the cause of it.

He was naked; realizing it when the cool air hit the light sheen of sweat that had already formed on his skin from their actions. Eyes closed, the back of his head pressed into the mattress, he could feel his hair stick to his forehead. Hannibal’s own hair tickled against the inside of his thighs as that silver tongue ran across him, leaving warm wet trails. His heart beat wildly in his chest; a pounding that threatened to break through bone as he struggled to inhale heavy air.

Losing himself to Hannibal Lecter felt wild and savage—It was addictive and dangerous. Something Will seemed to always be drawn into. Whether it was losing himself or truly finding himself he wasn’t sure, or he wasn’t sure that he really wanted to know. Either way, it had been too long since he’d let himself go like this, and now that they had started, it wasn’t possible to stop it. It felt like being tied to the tracks while the dim light of a freight train steadily approached; unable to do anything but wait for the inevitable execution.

\--

Gabriel had always told Michael he was too paranoid, always looking behind. Like the twitching ears of a beast; constantly searching for a threat. For Gabriel it was a hindrance, a distraction while he attempted to run forward at full force—In Michael’s mind he needed to make up for his twin’s recklessness. The hunger in his brother was satisfied only with destruction, gaining no pleasure in watching his fires burn behind him as he moved onto the next course.

As his other half, it was up to Michael to make up for whatever it was that Gabriel lacked. It would only make sense that Gabriel would be his undoing.

That knowledge tormented him as he drove farther and farther away from the insanity that his brother now wore like a fine tailored suit. Michael could have handled the murders; his brother had his reasons, no matter how inane they may have been to Michael. Kidnapping on the other hand, was making him sick to his stomach. He wasn’t sure how long he could keep looking at the young boy and not knowing what Gabriel’s plan was—Knowing Gabriel didn’t have a plan for this, and the idea of him making it up as he went along was just as terrifying.

His eyes kept moving to the rearview mirror. It was fruitless; no one knew who they were, what his truck looked like. There was nothing to see behind him but his gaze was drawn there anyway, like a bad habit. At least he had thought there would be nothing to see, but about a mile from the cabin and his fourth glance behind him he saw something that had his heart stopping as he quickly stopped the truck. First, he thought he might have been seeing things. He couldn’t stop thinking about how screwed they were now that they had Graham’s kid, he wasn’t completely unconvinced he would start seeing things now.

However, as soon as he jumped out of the truck—There was the kid in the bed. He must have curled up behind the bags of clothes and cleaning supplies packed for his trip to Chatsworth, now pushing them out of his was as he stumbled on wobbly legs to get up.

Michael was compelled to help him, one hand going to steady the young boy while he bent over the back of the truck to pull him out. “What in the world are you thinkin’?!” Michael chided, voice raised slightly in panic. Panic because what will Gabriel do when he finds out the boy is gone? What would he do to the boy if Michael brought him back now? He didn’t want to think about it; but he also didn’t want to have the burden in his hands either.

“Can you take me to my daddy now?” Andrew asked, hair askew from being unprotected against the wind while Michael was driving. Michael could only thank God the roads were decent and empty around the cabin and the boy hadn’t fallen out and been hurt.

Still, as deserted as they seemed, he didn’t want to risk anyone passing by and hurried Andrew into the passenger side of the truck. He didn’t have a child seat; so he tucked him into the small backseat of the pickup behind the driver’s side. “Buckle up,” he ordered, before closing the passenger door and returning to his seat behind the wheel.

“Where are we going?” Andrew asked, still fumbling with the seatbelt so Michael reached around to clasp it into the buckle. “Can you take me home?”

Michael’s back teeth ground together, chewing on his own tongue while he pulled back onto the road. “No, kid. Didn’t I tell you to trust me? I told you to stay there, to stay at the house.”

“I didn’t want to. He scares me and you were leaving.”

“I’m goin’ to—“ He stopped himself. The kid didn’t need to know where he was going or what he was going to do there. In fact, he wasn’t quite sure what he was supposed to do now. It wouldn’t be long before they’d be entering the closest town, perhaps another twenty minutes. Once there, he figured he could stop for gas and use a local phone to call the cabin. "Just keep quiet and do what I say. I'll figure this out."

It may not be a good idea to bring the boy back right away, knowing Gabriel’s temper, but it would be worse trying to keep the boy from him as well. The burn on his hand ached against the steering wheel as if to serve as a reminder to that fact. The wisest decision was to give his twin time to defuse and settle, then they could figure out their next move from there. It would be safer for the kid that way; no matter how much Michael wanted to simply do as the boy asked and return him to Graham. They were getting in way too deep, to the point where the only way out of this was with a body bag.

For most of the journey into town the boy was quiet, a peek into the backseat told him he had finally fallen asleep. It wasn’t until he had stopped at the gas station that he heard a word from the boy behind him.

“I have to pee.” Such a typical and common statement from a child now had Michael shivering with unease. He couldn’t have the boy stand outside and pee, that would rise enough eyebrows, but bringing him into public seemed like a terrible idea to him as well. Michael knew the gas station, knew there was a public restroom inside that the boy could use, but wasn’t sure if he was daring enough to risk it.

Andrew, on the other hand, wasn’t going to give him the option—Slipping between the two front seats after having unbuckled himself in order to follow Michael out of the truck. Keeping the young boy in front of him, Michael headed into the gas station, leading him to the back where the restrooms were. “Go on,” he told Andrew in a firm but hushed tone. Once Andrew had disappeared behind the door, he glanced around the store, noticing the few people within.

He caught a worker by the inside of his elbow, capturing his attention. “Excuse me, do ya have a phone I could use? Mine’s dead and I really need to get a hold of the wife; the kid and I are gonna be late.”

“Sure, there’s one over there by the kitchen.” The young man pointed down towards where the gas station made their pizzas and subs. “We don’t usually let people use it but if you explain everything to the girl behind the counter I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

Thanking him, Michael watched the employee head back towards the check-out just in time to see Andrew step out of the bathroom. Confusion and then recognition appeared on the boy’s face in rapid succession, reaching out towards Michael while pointing out the front window of the store. “Look Michael,” Andrew said with a smile. “It’s daddy’s friend Jack. He probably knows where daddy is.”

Michael had to quickly grab the boy’s hand, turning to the ‘employees only’ door in hopes of being able to dart out the back.

Jack Crawford looked just as intimidating and overpowering off the job as he did in the pictures of him working on cases. It wasn’t easy to mistake that figure for anyone else. Without Graham at his side it wasn’t a complete threat, but without Gabriel at his side neither was he. He couldn’t afford to run into Crawford now. Phone call to Gabriel be dammed; it would be far worse for him to end up in jail and their one bartering chip to be lost so soon.

Darting from the back door, Michael lifted Andrew into his arms as he ran to the truck, glancing around the front of the store where he’d seen Crawford. There was no sight of the man anymore, and he hurriedly opened the passenger door and placed the young boy inside with an obvious sense of urgency. “Stay down,” he ordered, just as he heard a door slam from the direction they’d come from.

Michael climbed across the passenger side and forced himself into the driver’s seat from there, reaching across to shut the door behind him. Just as he got the key into the ignition, he saw Crawford again, gun pointed in his direction with a look of anger and determination on his face; screaming out to them. Michael couldn’t hear him. Didn’t want to hear him—He could only think to step on the gas and get as far away from there as he could while his tires squealed their protest and his foot touched the pedal to the floor.


End file.
